The airline was established as South East Asian Airlines in 1995 and started operations in the same year. However, its franchise was granted by the Congress of the Philippines only on May 13, 2009, through Republic Act No. 9517. The airline received its corporate registration from the Securities and Exchange Commission on 25 March 1995 mainly to operate aircraft leasing, chartering and a few domestic scheduled flights. In May 1995, the airline was registered with the Clark Special Economic Zone to operate services in the Clark-Manila-Subic area and to tourist destinations throughout the Luzon and the Visayas regions. It continued expanding its routes and opened a hub in Zamboanga City in 2002. On 29 September 2006, a deal was announced in which Singapore-based Tigerair would enter a commercial and operational tie-up with SEAir from February 2007. The tie-up was finally approved in 2008 after protest from four other Philippine airlines. However, due to the unfavorable operating environment, the plan was put into hiatus. Tigerair and SEAir revisited the partnership plan in 2010 and it was officially launched on 16 December 2010. Seats on flights operated by SEAir using two aircraft leased from Tigerair were sold and marketed by Tigerair for SEAir. Shortly after SEAir and Tigerair launched the partnership, Philippine Airlines, Cebu Pacific, Zest Airways and Air Philippines sent a letter of protest to the Department of Transportation and Communications claiming the partnership between SEAir and Tigerair was illegal and requested the authorities to stop flights operating under the partnership. The Tigerair-SEAir partnership began with international flights from Clark to Singapore, Hong Kong, and Macau. It was then expanded to domestic destination from Manila to Davao and Cebu. However, the Civil Aeronautics Board ordered the sales of the domestic flight under the partnership to be suspended on 20 May 2011, after receiving complaints from Philippine Airlines and Cebu Pacific. Since the ban from CAB was lifted in October 2011, the planned domestic flight was scheduled to start in May 2012. In February 2011, Tiger Airways Holdings Ltd., parent company of Tigerair, purchased 32.5% shares of SEAir Inc. They increased their shares to 40% in August 2012. In December 2012, CAB approved SEAir's application to form SEAir International, a full-service airline focusing on domestic and international leisure destinations and an independent operation from SEAir Inc., which was rebranded as Tigerair Philippines; "The two carriers have some common shareholders but it is not a unit of the other. Seair-I was formed to take on the turboprop division which was excluded in the share sale with Tigerair." SEAir Inc. was renamed Tigerair Philippines Inc. on 7 June 2013. In January 2014, Cebu Pacific announced that it was acquiring the entirety of Tigerair Philippines for US$14.5 million by buying all shares. In May 2015, for the fourth time, Tigerair Philippines was rebranded as Cebgo to reflect the relationship between Tigerair Philippines as a wholly owned subsidiary airline of its parent company Cebu Pacific. By October 2015, Cebgo returned 5 Airbus A320s to Cebu Pacific and thereafter operated a pure turboprop fleet of ATR 72-500s In January 2016. Cebu Pacific, Cebgo's Parent Company, announced it will order 16 ATR 72-600s at the Paris Air Show. This is to meet the growing demand of inter-island services. In February 2018, after a crowdsourcing campaign was launched in 2017, Cebu Pacific announced it was flying to Batanes, the most requested destination in the campaign. They will use Cebgo's ATR72 for the route. The route's inaugural flight was on March 25, 2018. On March 17, 2020. In an announcement, It was announced that along with parent airline Cebu Pacific. They will suspend all operations from March 17, 2020, up to April 14, 2020, due to the Enhanced Community Quarantine measures implemented by the government over the island of Luzon due to the rising cases of the Coronavirus in The Philippines.
Destinations
Cebgo flies to 30 destinations in the Philippines as of January 2020. It operates bases at the airports in Cebu and Manila
Fleet
As of July 2020, Cebgo operates the following aircraft:
Current fleet
On 10 February 2015, Cebu Pacific began transferring all of its ATR 72-500 to Cebgo. Cebgo ceased jet operations, While Cebu Pacific's last turboprop flight was on October 5. On 16 June 2015 at the 2016 Paris Air Show, Cebu Pacific announced an order for ATR 72-600 aircraft for its regional branch Cebgo to meet growing demand for domestic services. The airline is the launch customer of the high-density Armonia cabin, which seats up to 78 passengers.
Retired fleet
Incidents and Accidents
On November 1, 2018, Cebgo Flight DG 6717, an ATR 72-500 from Cebu City to Cagayan De Oro received an indication of a fire in the right engine. The engine was shut down and a fire drill was performed. It safely landed back at Mactan Cebu International Airport. It was rated as a serious accident and an investigation was started, which led to the immediate retirement of the aircraft.
