Low-cost flights between Hong Kong and India have arrived as budget carriers get creative to challenge traditional airlines’ passenger volumes and profits.
The move is part of an “experiment” by India’s largest carrier IndiGo to offer cheap long-haul flights using smaller planes over greater distances, including midway refuel stops, its chief commercial officer William Boulter told the Post in an exclusive interview.
His comments came with the debut of IndiGo’s Bangalore to Hong Kong route last week.
Late last month, fellow no-frills carrier Spicejet also launched flights between New Delhi and Hong Kong.
Boulter said: “We are in a test phase and to an extent experimenting with some of these routes. The Hong Kong route is an example that stretches the A320neo [Airbus model].”
The main competitors on routes between Hong Kong and India are the city’s Cathay Pacific Airways and Cathay Dragon, which fly to six destinations in the country, and other full-service carriers Air India and Jet Airways.
In the same vein, IndiGo plans to use a low-cost structure to launch flights to London with its existing fleet, with a stopover for refuel at either Baku in Azerbaijan or Tbilisi in Georgia, by the middle of next year. In doing so, it could offer cheaper tickets and expand more aggressively internationally without using larger twin-aisle planes – which it doesn’t own or operate.
22/12/18 Danny Lee/South China Morning Post
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The move is part of an “experiment” by India’s largest carrier IndiGo to offer cheap long-haul flights using smaller planes over greater distances, including midway refuel stops, its chief commercial officer William Boulter told the Post in an exclusive interview.
His comments came with the debut of IndiGo’s Bangalore to Hong Kong route last week.
Late last month, fellow no-frills carrier Spicejet also launched flights between New Delhi and Hong Kong.
Boulter said: “We are in a test phase and to an extent experimenting with some of these routes. The Hong Kong route is an example that stretches the A320neo [Airbus model].”
The main competitors on routes between Hong Kong and India are the city’s Cathay Pacific Airways and Cathay Dragon, which fly to six destinations in the country, and other full-service carriers Air India and Jet Airways.
In the same vein, IndiGo plans to use a low-cost structure to launch flights to London with its existing fleet, with a stopover for refuel at either Baku in Azerbaijan or Tbilisi in Georgia, by the middle of next year. In doing so, it could offer cheaper tickets and expand more aggressively internationally without using larger twin-aisle planes – which it doesn’t own or operate.
22/12/18 Danny Lee/South China Morning Post
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