Dragon Air considers expansion
August 31, 2010 by Rapeepat Mantanarat
Filed under News
BANGKOK, 30 August 2010 – Dragon Air intends to increase services on its Hong Kong-Phuket route as well as start fights to Siem Reap during the up-coming winter schedule.
Cathay Pacific Airways sales and marketing manager, Thailand and Myanmar, Yongyut Lujintanon, said traffic to Phuket was robust with an average load factor for the seven-month period of 90 to 95% .
“The airline is assessing demand and whether to increase flights into Phuket. Currently it operates 10 flights a week after an additional three weekly flights were added a few months ago,” he said.
“We would like to serve the route double daily but we are not going to increase another four flights in one step. Services will gradually increase, starting with an additional flight during this winter traffic programme,” said Mr Yongyut.
On the Hong Kong-Phuket route, Mr Yongyut noted 90% of passengers were inbound mostly from Hong Kong, Europe (connecting from the Cathay Pacific network) and China. Since Cathay commenced flights to Moscow in July, the airline has also flown Russians to Phuket. Only 10% of the outbound traffic comes from Phuket, mostly expatriate residents.
As for other points in Thailand, Mr Yongyut said Dragon Air had no firm plan, but Chiang Mai was on the radar. It would depend on whether there was any outbound market from Chiang Mai to justify a service.
The airline is also eyeing services to Siem Reap in Cambodia. It already operates daily to Phnom Penh and has three to five charters a month to Siem Reap.
Dhaka, Phnom Penh and Phuket are the top three destinations in Asia (excluding Chinese cities) for Dragon Air.
The carrier has ordered three A320s and two A330s to support future expansion. It has a fleet of 31 Airbus aircraft.
According to Mr Yongyut, Cathay Pacific will not announce new destinations next year but might add points in the US. The carrier recently ordered six B777-300ER and 30 A350s.
From Thailand, he said it might be possible to increase services on the Bangkok-Singapore route currently served daily. But that would depend on a suitable time slot. It will keep the Bangkok-Mumbai operation, although frequency will be reduced to just three flights a week from daily. It already has a daily nonstop service from Hong Kong which is more convenient for passengers.
From October, fares will increase to around the same level posted at the start of 2010. They were generally 10 to 12% higher than 2009 fares. The airline was forced to drop fares by 7 to 8% when Thailand faced political conflicts April to June.
