Cathay Pacific strengthens services to India

Chennai : Cathay Pacific Airways has announced that it will significantly enhance its schedule to and from India beginning 29 February, with more flights added to its existing services to Delhi and Mumbai and the launch of a new destination, Chennai.

The enhanced services - a total of 23 new flights a week by early June - from one of the world's fastest-growing economies will serve to further enhance connectivity between India and the world on Cathay Pacific's global network.

Cathay Pacific Chief Executive Tony Tyler said: "We are very excited indeed about being able to boost our services to India - something we have been striving to do for decades. With our home in Hong Kong, Cathay Pacific is ideally positioned to act as the natural carrier of choice for passengers travelling to and from one of the world's fastest growing markets, India. The opportunities for Hong Kong as a leading international aviation hub are very clear."

Cathay Pacific's services to Mumbai and Delhi will both become a daily operation from 29 February with the addition of three more flights a week to each city. The extra flights to Mumbai will continue on to Dubai. This translates into a daily flight from Mumbai to Dubai in addition to daily flights from Delhi and Mumbai to Hong Kong.

From the beginning of the summer schedule on 30 March, the airline will add a further three flights a week to Mumbai, taking the number of flights to the city to 10 a week. At the same time, another daily flight will be added to Delhi, making it a double-daily service of 14 flights a week. And on 1 June Cathay Pacific will add Chennai, India's fourth-largest Metropolitan City, to its network with four flights a week.

The aircraft deployed on the route to Mumbai will be a Boeing 777-300 aircraft with a total of 385 seats. To Delhi, the airline will operate Airbus A330-300 aircraft with 311 seats per aircraft. Cathay Pacific will operate also operate the Airbus A330-300 on the new Chennai route. All aircraft deployed will offer a two-class cabin product with Business and Economy Class.

Details of the flight numbers and schedules for the services are still being finalised and will be published in due course.

Tom Wright, Cathay Pacific General Manager, India, Middle East, Africa & Pakistan, said: "With the increase in services from India, Cathay Pacific will be finally be able to more fully serve the important, fast-growing Indian market to Hong Kong and beyond. Using our hub in Hong Kong, passengers from India will be able to connect to Cathay Pacific's extensive global network of 111 destinations in addition to our sister airline Dragonair's network of 33 destinations, including 21 cities in Mainland China. This is an exciting development for Indian passengers, who will have an even greater choice for travel around the world."

Currently, Cathay Pacific operates four nonstop direct flights between Hong Kong and Delhi, and four flights to Mumbai routed Hong Kong - Bangkok - Mumbai - Dubai.

Cathay Pacific began flying to India 25 years ago, launching a passenger service to Mumbai in January 1982. Delhi was added as a passenger destination in March 2001 and the airline also operates scheduled freighter flights to Mumbai, Delhi and Chennai.

In addition to the Cathay Pacific India enhancements, sister airline Dragonair will launch a daily flight between Hong Kong and Bangalore, the country's information technology hub, on 1 May, using an A330-300 aircraft.