SEAIR to serve Manila-San Fernando route
North Luzon travelers can now avail of the convenience of direct round-trip flight from Manila to San Fernando City, La Union and vice versa through the Southeast Asian Airlines (SEAIR).
SEAIR became the first leisure airline to serve the Manila-San Fernando route since the improved facilities of the newly-upgraded San Fernando Airport here became available.
The one-hour flights are scheduled three times a week –Mondays, Wednesday and Fridays.
Aside from this, SEAIR passengers can also avail of complimentary land transfer from San Fernando to Baguio City and back as a bonus.
Baguio is the economic and tourism center of the Cordilleras and is popular for its vibrant pine trees and beautiful mountain scenes and cool weather all-year round.
San Fernando is among the newly re-developed tourist destinations in the country. Among its completed projects is the newly-refurbished P500-million San Fernando Airport.
La Union is also home to one of the finest five-star hotels in the Northern Philippine region, the Thunderbird Resorts, located at Poro Point.
A SEAIR vacation package is available for as low as Php11,954 per person, which includes round-trip airfare to San Fernando, two-night accommodation with daily breakfast and round-trip transfers, among others.
Incorporating Mediterranean architecture influenced by the Santorini Islands of Greece, the 65-hectare Thunderbird Resorts boast of stylish, ambient luxury suites perched on a 100-foot cliff overlooking the white sand beach and the South China Sea, and a full set of world–class services and amenities.
“Current developments in La Union augur well with the leisure market that SEAIR wants to develop for the new destination,” said SEAIR President Avelino Zapanta.
“Furthermore, SEAIR intends to market the flight as two-destination flight to include Baguio. Arrangements have been made so that the land component for the Baguio-bound passengers can be made as convenient, safe and fast as possible,” Zapanta added.
SEAIR posted record-breaking ticket sales from January to February of 2010, more than 40 percent than what it generated for the same period in 2009.
Zapanta attributed the growth to an enhanced online ticketing system, the longest continuous direct flights to Caticlan, improved passenger services such as complimentary transfer and the development of new destinations.
“The surge in domestic travel helped a lot. Domestic tourism added to the local traffic resulted in a hefty growth of the collective domestic passenger traffic,” Zapanta said, pointing out that the trend will continue and even improve this year.
“All the local airlines are bullish about the immediate future,” said Zapanta, stressing that this year, his company is studying a number of potential destinations both domestically and in the region.
“We have not made any definite decisions but we will announce accordingly if these are finalized,” he added.
SEAIR has been serving key tourist destinations since 1995, including Boracay, Basco (Batanes), Tablas (Romblon), Marinduque, El Nido, Cebu, Clark, Zamboanga, Jolo and Tawi-Tawi.
The airlines also offer most routes to and from Caticlan with flights from Caticlan to Manila, Clark and Cebu.
The Poro Point Management Corporation, which financed the expansion of the San Fernando Airport, expects passenger and cargo traffic to improve the economy of La Union and its neighboring provinces.
La Union’s coastal towns comprise one of the country’s top surfing destinations and the province boast of a rich cultural heritage and historical landmarks.
SEAIR, which is celebrating its 15th anniversary this year. It is the second oldest airline in the country and has flown almost three million passengers.
“SEAIR will definitely be very much around five years from now. We’ll make sure that by then it would be bigger, better and continually being preferred by our chosen market segment- the leisure travelers,” he added.
