The airline began operating flights from Chennai on 03 June 2008
Chennai, June 04 2018: Cathay Pacific Airways celebrated 10 years of passenger flight operations between Chennai and Hong Kong on 03 June 2018. Since flights were launched in 2008, more than 600,000 passengers have travelled from Chennai and approximately 39,000 tons of cargo have been carried.
Cathay Pacific began passenger flights with four weekly flights in 2008 operating an Airbus 330-300 aircraft. In 2010, to meet the increasing demand from both business and leisure travellers, the airline expanded to daily operations.
In celebration of the 10th anniversary, the airline’s check-in counters wore a festive look and passengers travelling from Chennai on CX 632 on 03 June were given commemorative gifts. The airline has also launched bonus Asia Miles for every round trip or one way journey from Chennai to North America, Asia or Australia between 15 June and 15 August 2018.
Cathay Pacific’s Regional Sales and Marketing Manager – South Asia, Rajesh Menon says,” We are delighted to have completed 10 successful years of operations from Chennai. We began with 4 weekly flights and in a few years were able to expand to daily flights due to the great potential Chennai offered. Our flights have catered to a wide segment of passengers that include corporate travellers, holiday makers, VFR traffic and students, travelling to the popular destinations of Hong Kong, San Francisco, Tokyo, Shanghai, Sydney to name a few. Chennai continues to hold tremendous opportunity with the growing economic developments in the state. We are excited about our future prospects and look forward to offering our passengers a life well-travelled with our products and services”.
On the cargo front, Cathay Pacific also carries cargo in the belly of its passenger aircraft. Cathay Pacific’s Regional Cargo Manager – South Asia, Middle East and Africa, Anand Yedery says, “We believe in finding the right balance between utilizing belly capacity on our passenger aircraft combined with the main deck capacity on our Boeing 747 freighters. The belly capacity on our passenger flights from Chennai enable us to carry between 20 and 30 tons of cargo per flight. This includes machinery spares, electronics, garments, perishables and courier. Chennai is an important market for us for exports and imports and contributes to around 27% of the India cargo revenue.”
About the Cathay Pacific Group
The Hong Kong-based Cathay Pacific Group offers scheduled passenger and cargo services to over 200 destinations in Asia, North America, Australia, Europe and Africa, using a fleet of close to 200 aircraft. There are three airlines in the Cathay Pacific Group: Cathay Pacific, a premium international network airline; Cathay Dragon, a wholly owned subsidiary of Cathay Pacific which focuses on providing premium services to destinations across Asia; and AHK Air Hong Kong, an all-cargo carrier operating regional express freight services that Cathay Pacific is in the process of making into a wholly owned subsidiary.
Cathay Pacific and Cathay Dragon currently operate 48 weekly departures from 6 cities in India to Hong Kong. Cathay Pacific operates 10 flights a week from Mumbai, 14 flights from Delhi, daily flights from Chennai and 4 weekly flights from Hyderabad. Cathay Dragon operates daily flights from Bengaluru and 6 weekly flights from Kolkata. Cathay Pacific Cargo operates from six cities in India with 29 weekly freighters.
