Davao City (14 March) — The government and the private sector in the region are joining hands to look for the remaining million passengers that will increase demand, investments and international flights of the underused Davao International Airport.
Department of Tourism XI regional director Sonia Garcia in a press briefing with Davao business reporters on Tuesday at Krua Thai of SM City said they realized that passengers are not yet aware of the potential of DIA as an international gateway.
She said the services are right there at DIA and passengers from here could check through till their international destinations.
She said the total seats capacity both for domestic and international flights of airlines at DIA totaled to 2.282 million but actual travelers that are being served by the airport is only about a million each year.
“We just want to hit a 10 percent increase of the current capacity or about 80 percent load on the average,” she said.
In a data sheet provided to the press, it indicated the annual available seats capacity as follows, for domestic with grand total annually at 2,097,472 with the Air Philippines available total capacity of 429,520, Asian Spirit, 31,200, Cebu Pacific, 1,029,600, Philippine Airlines 607,152.
The grand total for international annual seats capacity of 185,224 with Asian Spirit (Davao-Palau and Palau-Davao) at 30,264, SilAir (Davao-Singapore and Singapore (via Cebu) and (Singapore-Davao (via Cebu) and Singapore-Davao) 103,378, and Sriwajaya (Davao-Manado and Manado-Davao) 3,562.
These are ready seats not all taken she said and the need to bring them down to prospective travelers would change the face of traffic at the DIA.
Laucnhing the marketing program for DIA dubbed as Gateway Davao Blitz, she said there will be the partners who will do promotional blitz, host exhibits/booths in malls of key cities in Mindanao, production of promo collaterals as well as conduct comparative study between the costs of flying out via DIA and direct flights to Manila in going out to other countries in the world.
The DIA, she said is more than equipped to cater to the needs of inbound and outbound flights where 40 airlines were given landing rights.
She said it boasts of an International Airport that serves five international airlines that flies to Palau (Asian Spirit), Indonesia (Swirijaya), Singapore (Cebu Pacific and Silk Air and Hongkong (Cebu Pacific).
She said that to make things happen, there is a need to get more people to use the DIA and with people getting interested to Davao and Mindanao because of connections it would pre-empt the putting up of new hotels bringing in more economic activities. (PIA XI)
