Cathay Pacific's Plan to Profit From India's Aviation Boom

20.09.2023 - 08:29 / skift.com / Amrita Ghosh / Air India

Last week, Hong Kong-based carrier Cathay Pacific announced the resumption of three non-stop weekly flights from Chennai.

Skift caught up with Anand Yedery, regional head of customer travel and lifestyle for South Asia, Middle East and Africa at Cathay Pacific, to talk about the carrier’s plans for India.

Here’s what we found out…

India is a high priority market for the carrier. As Yedery said, “Airline operational levels in India have been soaring and this upward trend signifies a strong recovery. We are rebuilding our capacity as quickly as is feasible with more flights and destinations.”

Current Operations: Cathay operates out of Delhi with a double daily, a daily from Mumbai, and four times a week from Bengaluru. The thrice weekly from Chennai will start from February 2. 

Compared to Pre-Pandemic: However, according to Yedery, the carrier’s current 25 flights out of India is almost 50% of the 49 flights that it used to operate pre-pandemic as an airline group between Cathay Pacific and Cathay Dragon from six ports.

Outbound Destinations: Besides,Hong Kong, some of the destinations driving demand for Cathay Pacific from India include Japan, Korea, and Australia.

Emerging travel trends:

Performance: With strong demand across segments like business, visiting friends and relatives, leisure and student travel, Cathay Pacific’s demand from India has been witnessing an upward trajectory.

“Our load factors have been in a healthy range from all three markets that we currently operate from,” said Yedery.

Tata Group-owned Air India has introduced a self-baggage drop and self-kiosk check-in service at Terminal 3 of Delhi airport for its domestic flights and flights to Australia.

With this Air India becomes the first Indian carrier to offer self-baggage drop facility for international flights.

Delhi Airport had introduced the facility at Terminal-3 of Indira Gandhi International Airport in June to streamline the baggage drop-off process. The airport had claimed it would reduce wait time for passengers by 15-20 minutes.

IndiGo was the first airline to use it for domestic flights.

Air India’s Project Abhinandan: Last week, Air India rolled out ‘Project Abhinandan’ under which the carrier deployed specially trained Service Assurance Officers at 16 major Indian airports to proactively sense passenger concerns and offer on-ground assistance across airport touchpoints. 

Indonesia tourism has experienced an overall increase of 12-15% surge in travelers from India compared to the previous year as it welcomed nearly 325,000 Indians between January and July this year, Sanjay Sondhi, country manager of Visit Indonesia Tourism Office in India told Skift. 

Pre-pandemic, Indonesia welcomed 673,000 Indian arrivals.

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