Hong Kong Airlines is ending service to Los Angeles and further reducing its network as it responds to strong competition and overcapacity in the market, as well as weaker travel demand caused by the recurring protests in Hong Kong.
As hundreds of airlines from around the world gather in Barcelona for World Routes 2017, Routesonline can reveal the top international routes by passenger numbers.
The carrier, part of the HNA Group, will offer a daily flight between Hong Kong and Vancouver from June 30, 2017, initially using a 283-seat Airbus A330-200 but likely to be switched to the A350-900 once the first of its aircraft are delivered towards the end of next year.
There has been a steady increase year-on-year in the number of Hong Kong and China travellers visiting New Zealand. According to official figures from Statistics New Zealand, as of March 2016, the total number of visitors from Hong Kong and China were up 19.1 percent and 27.8 percent, respectively.
Tokyo will be Hong Kong Airlines’ seventh destination in Japan and will complement its existing twice daily flights to Routes Asia 2017 host city, Okinawa, daily flight to Okayama, five times weekly service to Sapporo, three times weekly service to Kagoshima and twice weekly flights to Miyazaki and Kumamoto.
The return of the Hong Kong – Phnom Penh operation will place Hong Kong Airlines in competition with Dragonair, which will soon be renamed Cathay Dragon to emphasise its relationship with Hong Kong’s largest air carrier, Cathay Pacific. It also offers flights between Hong Kong and Siem Reap in Cambodia, a market that HK Express introduced in September 2015.
The airline, which is a subsidiary of China’s HNA Group, will commence flights to both Cairns and the Gold Coast on January 8, 2016 on a triangular route which will operate from Hong Kong to the Gold Coast, continuing onto Cairns.
The airline plans to expand its services to include a thrice weekly rotation between Hong Kong and Yancheng, in the Northeastern Jiangsu province, China. The two hour ten minute flight will be operated by the airline’s Airbus A320 aircraft, and will operate on Tuesday, Friday and Sunday from March 31, 2015.
