Indian carriers are thronging back to Hong Kong as the special administration region of China opens up to more flights and tourists post pandemic. Vistara became the latest carrier to announce flights to Hong Kong from Delhi. The airline will launch the flights starting October 05, 2023 and deploy the three class A321neo on this route which features a lie flat bed in Business Class.
This announcement comes within days of IndiGo announcing recommencement of direct connectivity to Hong Kong, which begins October 05, 2023. IndiGo operated to Hong Kong from Kolkata and Bengaluru pre-pandemic and the recommencement of flights sees the airline move the flight to Delhi, to begin with. SpiceJet was the other carrier which operated to Hong Kong having started the flights in 2018 after receiving the first of B737 MAX8 aircraft. Both the airline and aircraft have been through troubled times since then.
Vistara will operate the flights at below timings
UK101 DEL2105 – 0555(+1)HKG
UK102 HKG0855 – 1310DEL
IndiGo will operate the flights at below timings
6E1707 DEL0520 – 1310HKG
6E1708 HKG1555 – 1920HKG
Air India and Cathay Pacific are the incumbent carriers in this sector. Earlier, Jet Airways had a presence at Hong Kong and even Kingfisher Airlines operated to Hong Kong. Hitherto a route driven by widebody aircraft, the MAX and NEO’s have helped airlines launch this route with narrow body aircraft.
What do the numbers say?
At its peak, there were over 5,000 passengers flying daily between India – Hong Kong – India. These numbers include those which fly beyond Hong Kong.
Air India had launched Mumbai – Hong Kong flights pre-pandemic, a route it is yet to return to. Air India will operate four weekly flights to Hong Kong, from Delhi this winter, while Cathay Pacific has reservations open for double daily flights.
With new connections, destinations and expanding carriers – it will take time for the passenger numbers between India and Hong Kong to reach the pre-pandemic levels.
Network Thoughts
Vistara and IndiGo have interesting timings and give out details about their strategy. Vistara will offer connections from Paris, Frankfurt and London to Hong Kong, albeit not with the best of connection times. Vistara’s timings rely on the traditional late evening India departure and early morning arrival at destination.
IndiGo, on the other hand, is banking on a mid-day arrival and departure from Hong Kong, something which it has shied away from in other markets like Vietnam and the former USSR states. With the kind of red-eye flights which IndiGo has and the hassle of terminal transfer in a few cases, there will be strong connections from its domestic network.
The market has been largely dominated by Cathay Pacific for years. The entire Indian capacity put together has been lower than what Cathay Pacific deployed but with the additional range of narrow body aircraft, Indian carriers are catching up. The extended curbs on travel in Hong Kong had got Cathay Pacific to its knees and how it expands now would be an interesting thing to see. Cathay also carried traffic beyond Hong Kong to Korea, Japan and North America – something which the Indian carriers won’t do. Cathay has already announced the resumption of a few routes and addition of flights over the next months. IndiGo, for sure, would look at adding another flight to Hong Kong – possibly from Kolkata. One thing is for sure, these relatively longer flights from IndiGo are going to help fulfil its plan of capacity addition since these have significant capacity (by ASK) per flight.
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I can see that Air India has already resumed Delhi- hongkong service on dreamliners