Jetstar wants to fly to the Philippines

[Melburnian1]

What’s with all the domestic fights at Cebu between 12am-6am? Like a dozen departures to Manila, the flight isn’t even an hour. Who is flying on all these flights?

MNL 'NAIA' airport annually handles more passenger journeys than SYD, MEL or indeed any airport in Australia.

It has only two runways.

Passenger (and presumably airline freight) traffic is continuing to grow given like Vietnam, the Filipino economy is expanding at five to six per cent a year, way above what Australia achieves albeit from a demonstrably much lower base.

Filipinos will fly at all hours of the night to beat the road traffic congestion in Metro Manila and Cebu City. This can be seriously bad as Manila doesn't have an extensive rail network, although its first true metro line is slowly being built and one elevated rail line was extended a few stations (including one fairly close to T3 NAIA) a year ago. Cebu City lacks railways.

Contrast that to Australia where say (even if achievable despite slot and 80 movements per hour or 20 in every 15 minutes restrictions for SYD) an 0500 hours MEL to SYD flight offered by QFd, JQd or VAd would not be popular except for passengers connecting to other flights.