LongHaul67 From Norway, joined Jan 2007, 188 posts, RR: 1 Posted (2 years 1 month 1 week 5 days 10 hours ago) and read 1122 times:
I see from CX timetable that they hardly fly their own metal to Beijing and Shanghai.
I would think that these mega cities would be a very strong and interesting market for CX.
Commavia From United States, joined Apr 2005, 6810 posts, RR: 59 Reply 1, posted (2 years 1 month 1 week 5 days 10 hours ago) and read 1097 times:
Two main reasons:
1) For years, CX has been shut out of the Mainland China market because, based in HKG SAR and not really in China, they had to make the choice - like many airlines years ago - between China and Taiwan. As Taiwan has always figured so prominently in their network, they chose Taiwan, with all the HKG-Mainland flying by HKG-based carriers largely going to Dragonair. This was not really much of a problem for CX, though, as for most of the last 1-2 decades, CX owned a significant stake in Dragonair (with only a brief interruption I believe about 5-7 years ago when they didn't own anything).
2) Even now that CX has gotten limited rights back into China, there really isn't any need for them to commit too much of their precious aircraft capacity to the market when their now wholly-owned subsidiary Dragonair already has such a massive amount of lift into China (not only to PEK and PVG, but to almost 20 other Chinese cities). With the massive amount of capacity Dragonair feeds into the CX network, and now with Dragonair joining oneworld, there really isn't a compelling market need for CX to do any major push into China with their own metal. It's more efficient to let Dragonair do it for them.
Swiftski From Australia, joined exactly 3 years ago today! , 2516 posts, RR: 1 Reply 2, posted (2 years 1 month 1 week 5 days 6 hours ago) and read 923 times:
Quoting Commavia (Reply 1): It's more efficient to let Dragonair do it for them.
CX flyboy From Hong Kong SAR, PRC, joined Dec 1999, 5593 posts, RR: 61 Reply 3, posted (2 years 1 month 1 week 5 days 4 hours ago) and read 848 times:
There are still rumours about the long term plans for Beijing and Shanghai. For the moment Dragonair will continue to fly the routes. Initially CX was thinking about pulling out altogether and allowing KA to get on with it, but that frees up slots for Hong kong Airlines/Express to start the route and compete so it looks like the two airlines will continue the two routes. Eventually however we may see CX increasing flights to the two cities and Dragonair slowly pulling out instead concentrating on the smaller cities with its fleet of narrowbodies. There are even rumours of the A330s joining the CX fleet.
There are a few different rumours and because they all refer to the longterm, anything could happen. For the moment though, we can expect KA to continue doing what they are doing, cutting down on overlapping routes with CX unless they are used in a supporting role with their smaller aircraft like the direct service to FUK they launched recently with A321s complimenting the overnighting CX flight which goes via TPE.
LongHaul67 From Norway, joined Jan 2007, 188 posts, RR: 1 Reply 4, posted (2 years 1 month 1 week 5 days ago) and read 688 times:
Interesting comments.
How does KA service compare to CX?
I flew BKK-HKG return this weekend on TG. I was thinking hard and heavy about flying CX, but opted for the lounge access since I am star alliance member.
I have to say HKG is a fantastic airport....I've never seen anything like it. I can't think of any airport in Europe even coming close to it. Brand new BKK lags far behind it in terms of efficiency.
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