Cebu Pacific Air (5J, Manila Ninoy Aquino International) has announced it has placed an order with Airbus (AIB, Toulouse Blagnac) for an additional seven A321ceo in order to mitigate the impact of deferred deliveries of its A321neo.

The Filipino operator said in a statement the aircraft will meet its increased capacity requirements pending the delivery of its first of thirty-two A321neo, which will now begin during the last quarter of 2018 and run through to 2022. Under the previous agreement, the aircraft would have begun arriving from September 2017 through to 2021.

"We have decided to take a conservative approach to the introduction of the A321neo into our operations," Cebu Chief Finance Officer, Andrew Huang, said adding that the decision to defer the neo arrivals was due to 'delays' with the Pratt & Whitney engines selected to power the aircraft.

"We remain confident that Pratt & Whitney will address all issues on the GTF (Geared Turbo Fan) engine. There is, however, the need to increase our current capacity to meet growing domestic and regional network demand, thus the A321ceo order," he added.

The seven A321ceo planes will deliver from March 2018 and will add to the order for thirty-two A321neo.