With the international civil aviation market witnessing a revival, Dragonair, a part of the Cathay Pacific Group, on Tuesday said it would reinstate its daily flight services between Bangalore and Hong Kong. Presently, it is operating four days a week.
“The Dragonair flights will start flying daily from March 28 from Bangalore to Hong Kong,” said Tom Wright, general manager of Dragonair for India, Middle East, Africa and Pakistan. The company maintained 80-85% load factor when it was operating four flights a week from Bangalore to Hong Kong. “A same kind of load factor is expected to be maintained with seven flights a week too,” he said. The growing Sino-India trade tie-ups will push up the passenger traffic between Indian and Hong Kong, where several Chinese companies have set up their trading offices, the airlines said.
The company has witnessed around 30% growth in its business in the first two months of the current year with its Indian operations. “The same kind growth could be maintained if the situation continues like this,” he said. Dragonair was the first airline company that introduced daily direct flights to Hong Kong from Bangalore in June 2008, targeting business class travelers in India’s IT capital. But it had reduced its capacity to four flights a week in January 2009 following economic recession.
The company’s 60% of Indian business accounts for corporate sector while leisure passenger segment contribute 20%. With the economic revival seen since the fourth quarter 2009, he said the leisure segment contribution would touch 25% this year.
Currently, Dragonair is operating flights only from Bangalore in India while its sister concern Cathay Pacific has flights from different Indian destinations.