Hong Kong-based Cathay Pacific is considering plans to launch scheduled flights to Tokyo Haneda Airport along with its existing flight services to Tokyo Narita International Airport, Airways Aviation News has learned.
According to Airways Aviation News‘ source who is close to the Hong Kong flag carrier, that the evaluation plan has been in place “for some time”.
However, the plan now seems “to be dependent on the availability of slots at Tokyo Haneda Airport”, the source confirms.
Cathay Pacific spokeswoman Carolyn Leung neither confirms nor denies the plan, saying “as always, we will make proper announcements on any new services or frequency changes to our network at appropriate time”.
Image Courtesy of Cathay Pacific
All Nippon Airways (ANA) and Japan Airlines (JAL) currently serve the route, while Cathay Pacific has operated charter flights to Tokyo Haneda Airport last Christmas, which proved to be very popular.
Flights to Hong Kong currently have 8 slots at Tokyo Haneda Airport.
With the 4th runway at Haneda opening in October 2010, daytime slots will be increased by 104,000 while a further 40,000 slots will be provided to night and morning operations.
The Haneda Airport will have a total of 447,000 slots, of which 70,000 of them will be allocated for international flights, according to the Japanese government’s plan, although not all the new slots will be released at once.
Launching flights to Tokyo Haneda Airport from Hong Kong provides much more convenient services for both leisure and business travellers, since the flights to Tokyo Haneda will depart Hong Kong around mid-night, plus the 4-hour duration of the flight and a time difference of 1 hour, the passengers will land at Tokyo Haneda at around 5 a.m. Tokyo local time.
This maximizes the time usage for both leisure and business travellers, and such flights on All Nippon Airways (ANA) and Japan Airlines (JAL) are proving to be “extremely popular”, according to Airways Aviation News‘ another source, who works in the Japanese tourism industry.
Moreover, offering these extremely popular flights not only provide a much-needed opportunity for Cathay Pacific to increase its profitability, it may be helpful for its oneworld partner Japan Airlines (JAL) as Cathay Pacific has a wider global coverage which can feed its passengers onto JAL’s one in Haneda.
Tokyo Narita International Airport and Tokyo Haneda Airport are located 75 km and 15 km away from downtown Tokyo, respectively, and international flights have been handled at the former airport for decades, creating operational challenges for JAL and ANA and headache for the connecting passengers who have to travel from Narita to Haneda by train or bus in order to catch Japanese domestic flights.
Having said that, Cathay Pacific will maintain its operations at Tokyo Narita since “Narita will still be an air transport hub”, Airways Aviation News‘ source says.
Image Owned by Airways Aviation News
Airways Aviation News believes a decision “is likely to be made within this year”, dependent on the availability of slots at Haneda.
Airways Aviation News had reported that Cathay may launch flights to Milan, Chicago and Hong Kong-Moscow-Manchester route (“Exclusive: Cathay may announce new flights to Moscow, Milan“, 9th Nov 09), of which plans to launch flights to Milan were confirmed shortly afterwards (“Cathay confirms plan to launch Milan flight“, 4th Dec 09).
Separately, Cathay Pacific has confirmed that it has delayed the parking of a 747-400 as air travel demand rebounds.
“We have decided to postpone the parking of a 747-400. We will decide whether to take it out of service or keep it flying in the next couple [of] months. So, just 5 passenger aircraft are now parked. We (CX and KA) plan to take delivery of 7 passenger aircraft this year (subject to change),” Cathay Pacific spokeswoman Carolyn Leung clarifies.
Following the change, Cathay Pacific has now parked 4 A340-300s, 1 B747-400 and 5 B747-400 BCFs (excluding 1 wet-leased to AHK).
“[There's] no plan to add freighter capacity or reactivate parked freighters (747-400BCFs) at the moment,” Leung said.
Cathay is due to receive 5 B777-300ERs and 2 A330-300s this year.
Airways Aviation News still believes Cathay will eventually decide to park the 747-400 or even more 747-400s in order for passenger capacity to stay largely the same as last year’s. In doing so, Cathay can better manage its yields.
0 Responses to “Exclusive: Cathay considers scheduled flights to Haneda”