Cebu Pacific

Our family of 18 adults and children were supposed to return to Manila on the last afternoon flight from Coron in early April. As expected the flight got delayed a few times until it was announced that it was cancelled. Someone told us that usually if late afternoon flights are delayed chances are they get cancelled as Coron's airport does not have runway lights at night. We got shuttled to a hotel in the town proper and we were given 4 rooms which we refused as there were at least 5 families. We negotiated to be transferred to another (better) hotel which fortunately had the required 5 rooms. While this was a harrowing experience for us we were fortunate that their staff listened and attended to our needs. Cancelled flights are a big inconvenience esp when you are travelling with small children. We probably will never fly Cebu Pacific anymore.

5J404 Apr 2nd and 5J405 Apr 9th. CEB seems to attempt promoting people to spend more time at the airport. For our recent family trip MNL to LAO they first informed by email and even followed up by call that the flight departure time was 1.5hrs earlier than scheduled. Just to let us then wait for almost 2hrs at a very crowded gate for the departure with a short note that the airplane had not yet arrived. We certainly would have found a better use in MNL for those 2hrs instead of waiting at the airport. It seems CEB starts their implementation of new schedules with informing their customers but only some time later also telling to the pilots and airport about it - interesting approach. Funny enough once we arrived in LAO the crew even announced proudly we arrived as scheduled! On the return flight they seemed to attempt to make up for it by departing 10min ahead of schedule from LAO. Leaves me wondering why they have a schedule at all?

Flew from Hong Kong to Cebu in March 2015. My wife did the booking so I was spared the aggravation of dealing with CP booking procedures and the constantly changing/escalating prices throughout the process. The usual complete chaos at Cebu Pacific check-in HK with insufficient check in staff and no organisation with a planeload of customers queuing for one Cebu flight desk up to the last minute whilst later CP flights were being also being checked-in. CP routinely boards from the satellite terminal which is a bus ride away from the main airport terminal. Stressful start to the journey. Once on the flight you realise why headline prices are so cheap with the bare minimum of legroom no food or even water unless you pay. Overall cheap but uncomfortable and stressful.

Having recently travelled on uncaring Sri Lankan Airlines it was a pleasure to be back on Cebu Pacific (SIN-MNL.) While seat pitch is restricted somehow the A320 felt more roomy than on UL. The 5J flight crew (all female as is often the case) were very pleasant and had manners unlike some on UL. The annoying Cebu Pacific game is repetitive and the prize of a small pouch hardly anything to rave about. In contrast there is quite a good selection of reasonably priced snacks while the pre-ordering of hot meals has become quite popular. Cebu Pacific flights are popular and in my case ran almost on time which was a bonus.

I undertook 6 flights on Cebu Pacific in February 2015. On 5 out of the 6 flights were delayed and the common excuse was traffic issues at Manila. This while other airlines plying the same route were leaving on time without any delays. Cebu Pacific announce proudly on their website when you book that they have a 69.1% punctuality rate for February! Onboard seating is comfortable and service is good though I do wish they would stop playing those silly games which can be annoying if trying to sleep on a night flight. There doesn't seem to be a consistent set of rules regarding use of ipads during flight. Some of the flights it was announced that it was ok to use ipads/ tablets if in flight mode throughout the flight from pushback to landing. On other flights they weren't allowed to be used till at cruising altitude. Since Cebu Pacific took over Tiger Air for domestic flights in the Philippines there now is really only Cebu Pacific of Philippine Airlines and as a result a number of routes have been cut completely and fares increased significantly. Cebu Pacific announced no more fuel surcharges however the price of flights increased so customers pay the same or more. When booking online beware of the add on's such as insurance / seat selection etc which are automatically added and must be removed by passenger if not wanted. Overall Cebu Pacific have good modern aircraft and provide a decent service just allow extra time (3 hours) for delays which almost always occur.

Manila-Butuan/Manila-Cebu round trip: The price was really cheap but it fired me back with 3 hour delayed flight and overpriced meal (cup of water - 50 Pesos) seriously? From the airport the first checked in bag cost me 540Pesos (around $12) for only 15kilos which was really pricey for local travelers. The flight was not that smooth but the flight attendants were really polite. This flight is not recommended for travelers with international connecting flights on the same day. This is a really time consumable flight in exchange of lower price.

I travelled with Cebu Pacific on 1 Feb 2015 from MNL-USU and on 3 Feb 2015 from USU-MNL in the afternoon and from MNL-SIN in the evening. I was worried after reading all the negative reviews about CP as it was my first time travelling with them and deliberately gave myself a long layover (about 5hrs) btw my return flight from USU and then to SIN on the same day. I pleasantly surprised when I travelled with them. I did a web check-in and got to the check-in counter 2hrs before flight time. Ground crew was friendly and polite. Flight left on time for MNL-USU and there was only a 15 min delay from MNL-SIN. Seats are typically what you find on a budget air. Didn't eat so can't comment on the food. Good thing CP is at Terminal 3 as I could eat do a massage and shop a bit during my layover. Would fly with them again.

Dubai - Manila - CDO on 16 December. Flight was very basic food was poor minimal and overpriced. No inflight entertainment staff were correct but seemed more interested in chatting to each other. My seat was near the emergency exit so enough foot space but due the freezing air leaking through the door far from pleasant. Transit in Manila was ok although in Dubai we were advised by Cebu Pacific to collect and transport our luggage ourselves. Totally unnecessarily and did pressure our short transit time of 90 minutes. On departure at CDO a very friendly counter staff member gave us a some VIP treatment prepared all OWF papers of my wife managed to transit our luggage by Cebu Pacific itself because the very short transit time in Manila (from T3 TigerAir to T4 Cebu Pacific in 90minutes!) and gave us both seats in the front-row. The flight from Manila to Dubai was very bumpy and unpleasant so Cebu Pacific has it's pro's and cons.

Our flight was scheduled to leave from Manila to Caticlan (Boracay) on January 8 2015 at 2.35pm. First no announcements were made until past departure time. Once the announcements finally came they merely mentioned as a side note that our flight was canceled and that we should proceed to the counter for rebooking. After waiting in line for another half hour they booked us on a 5:30 PM flight which however will only leave at 8pm because (as usual) other delays. This flight was now going to Kalibo which is another 2 hour bus travel away from Caticlan. That flight was delayed AGAIN and departed only at 9.30pm. We landed in Kalibo at 10.30pm and arrived at our hotel at around 1am. All other airlines left on time so it definitely wasn't an issue with the Airport.

Return flights booked from Manila to Caticlan. The flight out was meant to be at midday but was delayed several times with no announcements before we eventually were taken out on the bus to the plane 3.5 hours late. We were taken back to the terminal again and told the flight was cancelled. We were then put on a later flight to Kalibo even though we had paid to fly to Caticlan - this was to leave at 5pm. This flight was then delayed 30 then 60 then 90 minutes finally leaving at 8.45pm. This got us to Kalibo at around 10pm and we then had to get a coach for 2 hours to get us to where we should have been at 1pm. We finally got to our destination at 1:30am - about 12 hours after we should have. The night before we flew back we got an email to say our flight was cancelled and we were to call them to rebook or get a refund. We rang and could not get through to anyone. As a result we had to book a Philippines airline flight at our expense to ensure we got back to Manila for our connecting flight home a total disaster. Trying to get a refund from them for the cancelled flight took over 30 minutes on the phone and it will then be 10 business days until the refund is even processed. Will never fly them again.