Hong Kong-headquartered international carrier Cathay Pacific has launched its direct flight between Hong Kong and Hyderabad.
The first flight of the four-day weekly A-330-300 service landed at the GMR-operated Rajiv Gandhi International Airport (RGIA) in Hyderabad on Sunday.
With the Hyderabad service, Cathay Pacific now has 46 flights departing each week from India to Hong Kong, according to Tom Wright, country manager (South Asia, Wet Asia and Africa). The airline company had recently increased the frequency of its Chennai-Hong Kong-Chennai flights to daily service from the four-days-in-a-week service.
“Introduction of this new destination will play a very important role in promoting tourism, as Hyderabad has always been the favourite holiday destination for residents abroad. Similarly, it will open a direct window for the people of Hyderabad to choose Hong Kong as an exciting holiday destination and enjoy the dynamic city,” said Vikram Jaisinghani, chief executive officer of GMR Hyderabad International Airport Limited (GHIAL).
In fact, the recent rise in the international traffic has partly offset the steep fall in domestic passenger numbers at the Hyderabad international airport, which saw a 3 per cent dip in the overall passenger traffic in the first half of the current financial year, according to Jaisinghani. The airport operator expects few more international flight services to commence from Hyderabad in the coming months.
GHIAL is aiming at transforming the Hyderabad airport into a gateway of south and central India. The airport has been active with a unique campaign called ‘Fly Via Hyderabad’, launched in 2010, where 18 Indian cities in the catchment area of Hyderabad are being connected seamlessly, according to the company.
RGIA is the first greenfield public-private partnership in the Indian airport infrastructure sector and is eventually designed to handle over 40 million passengers and 1 million tonne of cargo in future.
source: http://www.Business-Standard.com / Home> Companies & Industry/ by BS Reporter / Chennai, Hyderabad / December 03rd, 2012