At an event in Melbourne to celebrate its direct flights between Melbourne and Hong Kong, which were launched in December, Hong Kong Airlines assistant president Gloria Slethaug says from September it’ll ramp that up to daily flights.
As Hong Kong Airlines celebrates its 20th anniversary this year, Slethaug says it’s investing even more heavily in the Australian market.
“Originally focused on regional routes, we now have new long-haul destinations to Sydney, Melbourne and Vancouver, so we are journeying into a more international airline.”
She says while at the moment its flights into Melbourne are three times a week, it will be increasing that to daily from September.
“We are ramping up capacity from Melbourne into Hong Kong, so in September and October, we will have a daily service.”
“This is a start, and we’ll continue to add on to the Melbourne service… and we look forward to introducing more aircraft, and as we do, we’ll continue to add more services to Australia because it’s very important to us.
“We also have a strong network to China and Japan, and we fly four times a day to Tokyo and Hokkaido two times a day.”
Also at the event to celebrate its success, Hong Kong Tourism Board Director for the South Pacific Karen Macmillan says Hong Kong has seen its biggest visitation in 12 years.
“Last year we were up 27 per cent in Australian travellers year on year, and we’ve finished December with our biggest visitation since 2014.”
She says with the opening of the new T2 at Hong Kong Airport, this will also mean moving signficantly more passengers.
“It’ll mean from 68 fight movements per hour to 102 per hour for a capacity of 120 million passengers annually.”
T2 opens in May and Hong Kong Airlines will be the first airline to move into the new terminal.
For more information, visit Hong Kong Airlines and Hong Kong Tourism.
