Leading Philippine budget carrier Cebu Pacific finally says hello to long-haul flights with an 888 seat sale for Manila-Dubai (vice versa) which will launch on October 7, 2013.
The company will be using its newly-leased Airbus A330s which will also be used for another forthcoming Middle East route, Saudi Arabia. The A330 will seat 436 passengers and is of course bigger than the Airbus A320s which the carrier uses throughout its Asian destinations. Flight time from Manila to Dubai is approximately nine hours.
Using the seat sale price of P888, we tried to do a mock booking on the Cebu Pacific website and netted a total fare of P11,640. While the fare from Manila-Dubai-Manila added up to P1,776, the low fare was eaten up by taxes and fees amounting to P9,864.(ouch) Still, this is not such a bad price considering that Dubai fares are priced from $500-$1000 in other non-budget airlines (Emirates included). Cebu Pacific’s year-round fare for Manila-Dubai is P7,999.
As part of the United Arab Emirates, Dubai is one hour away from Oman and Abu Dhabi, three hours by flight to other cities of the Middle East like Cairo, Egypt and a five to six hour flight away from European cities like Paris.
Good article which has more information about Dubai.
Yeah I was so excited when I saw this, but typical Cebu Pacific: A flight, promoted as 888 Pesos, cost in the end 10 times more. Still cheap of course, but far away from 888 pesos. I remember 3 years ago, I booked a ticket, Manila – Osaka for 999 pesos incl. tax. That was a fantastic deal! It seems this times are over 🙁