‘Sky Pasada’ reopens Laoag-Basco route

FIRST FLIGHT. Sky Pasada lands at the Laoag International Airport on May 4, 2024 for its inaugural flight from Basco, Batanes to Laoag and vice versa. The airline also plans to launch more routes connecting Laoag to Calayan in Cagayan and Baguio City via Binalonan, Pangasinan. (Photo: Provincial Government of Ilocos Norte/Facebook)

Government records showed the hub closed in 2003 due to the severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) that infected over 8,000 people and resulted in at least 774 deaths worldwide.

“We’re glad to welcome additional flights to the Laoag International Airport and hopefully to revive international routes such as China, Hong Kong, and Taiwan,” Ilocos Norte Governor Matthew Joseph Manotoc said on Monday.

He expressed support for sustaining the Laoag-Basco route that caters mostly to frequent business travelers and students, the reason the carrier is known as the “jeepney of the sky.”

To boost the new route, Manotoc said he will be reaching out to the local officials of Batanes to come visit the province for benchmarking activities, among others.

He also hoped that the airline would launch more routes connecting Laoag to Calayan in Cagayan and Baguio City via Binalonan, Pangasinan as earlier announced on Sky Pasada’s Facebook page.

The inaugural flight from Basco landed at Laoag International Airport on Saturday, carrying 13 passengers. The return flight saw nine passengers on board, demonstrating the growing demand for interconnectivity within the region.

Meanwhile, the governor announced that the Philippine Airline’s Laoag-Cebu route will discontinue on July 31.

“We face some challenges with the viability or load of Cebu-Laoag because in Cebu, there are a lot of options with very competitive options as compared to Laoag,” Manotoc said, adding that it would be revived through seasonal flights because tourism in the province is also seasonal.

“We are not like Boracay, Palawan, and Siargao where we have people all year round. Perhaps, we can explore other routes,” he said.

Since December last year, PAL and the Ilocos Norte government have teamed up to boost the Laoag-Cebu flights as the latter agreed to shoulder as much as 20 seats per flight.

The “hard block price” is equivalent to 20 seats per flight in support of PAL’s operation to a new destination.