Cathay Pacific to launch Hyderabad-Hong Kong flights from Dec 4

Hyderabad, Nov 30 (IANS) Cathay Pacific will be launching a direct flight between Hyderabad and Hong Kong from Dec 4.

The non-stop four-time weekly service will not only connect Hyderabad to Hong Kong but would also provide onward connectivity to several destinations in the US and the Asia Pacific, said an official of GMR Hyderabad International Airport Limited (GHIAL), which operates Rajiv Gandhi International Airport here.

D. P. Hemanth, chief operating officer, hub development, cargo, free trade zone, GHIAL, said this while addressing a conference of the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII).

On concerns raised by representatives from information technology over low international connectivity, Hemanth said one of the constraints was the bilaterals. “We don’t get as many bilaterals as we would like to because bilaterals are negotiations between two countries,” he explained.

On Lufthansa pulling out of Hyderabad, the official said it took the decision for a very odd reason.

“They had an internal issue of load stocking. They want to take passengers from India to Europe and from Europe to the US. Most of our IT folks from here go directly to the US. They had yield challenge and they could not spare an additional airframe. We went even upto Lufthansa board to talk to them,” he said.

Hemanth pointed out that even the last flight of Lufthansa had 97 percent load factor and that was the average for six months. The German carrier stopped Hyderabad-Frankfurt thrice weekly flight late last year.

Earlier, KLM had stopped its Hyderabad-Amsterdam flight. Hemanth pointed out that KLM pulled back in 2009 during the first recession period.

He, however, said various airlines started additional frequencies from Hyderabad.

“Emirates is operating daily three wide-body connections to Dubai which connects not just Dubai but rest of the world.” He said Oman Air and Qatar Airways were also having good number of frequencies from Hyderabad.

IANS 2012-11-30 17:08:11