Spreading its wings wider, Cathay Pacific on Saturday launched direct flights to Hong Kong from Hyder-abad’s Rajiv Gandhi Inter-national Airport.
Passengers availing this service can now connect to Cathay’s 170 onward destinations in nearly 42 countries. The new four-days-a-week service is aimed at creating a new tourism option from Hyderabad.
Vikram Jaisinghani, CEO of GMR Hyderabad International Airport Ltd, said RGIA has registered a three per cent fall in passenger traffic in the first half of the current fiscal mainly due to dismal economic conditions that battered the global aviation sector. He also said that the steep fall in domestic traffic could be made up by an increase in international traffic.
Cathay Pacific’s new service from Hyderabad will offer better options for corporate, commercial and medical travellers between Hyderabad and Hong Kong.
Mr Jaisinghani said the airport registered a total passenger traffic of 8.6 million in last fiscal and this figure might remain unch-anged even this year due to continued increase in international traffic from the city. Past couple of months have seen an increase in the number of flights to Dubai and Singapore etc. He expressed hope that bilateral proposals will lead to further increase in international flights in the coming months.
Tom Wright, country manager (South Asia, West Asia and Africa) for Cathay Pacific, expressed satisfaction over the charge at RGIA.
He said that including the Hyderabad service, there will now be 46 passenger flights leaving each week from India to Hong Kong. He, however, admitted that high airport charges in India was a matter of concern.