CEBU-based airline Mid-Sea Express (MSE) will be launching the Cebu-Guiuan route on February 20, the first commercial aircraft to use the Guiuan Airport in Eastern Samar since its completion two years ago.
The junior airline firm announced in its website that a 19-seater Jetstream 32 aircraft will be flying the new route twice weekly on Saturdays and Mondays.
Guiuan is the fourth destination that will be served by MSE from its main hub in Mactan International Airport in Cebu. The company offers a regular rate of P1,399.
Departure time in Cebu is scheduled at 10:30 a.m. and will arrive in Guiuan 11:20 a.m. The aircraft will then leave Guiuan 12 noon for Cebu with an estimated travel time of 50 minutes.
Aurora De los Reyes, Guiuan municipal tourism officer, said the launching of the new route is a welcome development for their town, which is being introduced as an alternative destination in the Visayas.
“It’s the airline’s decision to launch the route after completing a one-year feasibility study. They have seen the market potential of Guiuan especially in tourism,” De los Reyes said, adding that MSE conducted flight testing last January 30, 2012
She claimed that the target market is not just tourists in Guiuan but also passengers in nearby towns to include Eastern Samar’s capital city of Borongan.
Calicoan, one of the islands in Guiuan town, was declared as the country’s surfing capital by then President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo.
The island boasts of miles of white sand beaches. The place has been identified as surfer’s paradise with its powerful swells rolling in from the Pacific over the 10,000 meters Philippine Deep.
The island is endowed with lagoons ringed by forest, dozens of caves. The northern tip of Calicoan is wetlands, the home of everglades, teeming whitefish, shrimp, and crabs.
Since the completion of the P155-million Guiuan Airport Development Project, the local government has been inviting Philippine Airlines and Cebu Pacific to launch the Manila-Guiuan flight but airline companies found it as a non-viable route.
Established in 2008, as a helicopter aviation company in the Visayas, MSE offers specially tailored products suited to the needs of its clients.
The airline, which operates four aircrafts, has been flying the Cebu-Bislig, Cebu-Tagbiliran, Cebu-Camiguin, and Tagbilaran-Davao routes. (Leyte Samar Daily Express)
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