OOL & CNS take a win

Gold Coast (OOL) & Cairns (CNS) airports have had a win with Hong Kong Airlines announcing that they will continue their service to the Queensland airports year round.

The news comes just one month into the three month temporary Chinese New Year charter flights HX are operating from January to March.

Hong Kong Airways a subsidiary of Hainan Airlines currently operates these services 3x weekly from Hong Kong to the glitter strip, then back to HKG via CNS, using an Airbus A330. 

The new permanent service will operate twice weekly on the circular HKG-OOL-CNS-HKG route, and will now be open to local travellers.  Honk Kong Airlines is limited to secondary ports like OOL & CNS, due to the bilateral between Australia and Hong Kong, which restricts the number of flights into major airports, that each country is allowed and national carrier Cathay Pacific utilises all the HK rights.

Read the Gold Coast Airport media release HERE or the story via the Gold Coast Bulletin HERE or Australian Aviation HERE

Vale HKG-LHR-HKG NZ35/38

Air New Zealand have announced the end of their London - Hong Kong services NZ35/NZ38 effective 4 March 2013.

In a separate move which is part of Air New Zealand’s strategy to implement an alliance based network with a Pacific Rim focus, the airline has also formed a strategic agreement with Cathay Pacific on the Auckland – Hong Kong route.

Air New Zealand have announced that passengers booked on the HKG-LHR-HKG portion of NZ35/38 after 4/3/13 will be rebooked onto Cathay Pacific services.

Both Air New Zealand and Cathay Pacific will continue their current schedule on AKL-HKG-AKL services.

Outgoing Air New Zealand CEO Rob Fyfe has mentioned that the freed capacity will be redeployed into already announced additional North American services.

Read more from the Air New Zealand "blog" The Flying Social Network HERE

JQ to hub in HKG?

Reports out of China suggest that Jetstar may setup shop in Hong Kong.  The reports suggest the new Jetstar branded LCC will be based there and operate through China.

The Chinese language Apple Daily said yesterday the airline had begun talks with the city's government to apply for an air operator's certificate to launch an airline focused on mainland China routes.

Jetstar CEO Bruce Buchanan has previously signalled the airlines intentions to expand into China, and to date this has been happening from their Singapore base.

Read the full story from theaustralian.com.au's Steve Creedy HERE