Cathay Pacific resumes Hyderabad operations, plans to ramp up frequency by September

HYDERABAD: Hong Kong’s flag carrier, Cathay Pacific , which resumed operations from Hyderabad with three weekly flights this week, plans to ramp up its frequency to five flights weekly from the city to Hong Kong by Sept this year, driven by high load factors. The airline had suspended flights during Covid-19.

“We resumed our operations from Hyderabad after nearly five years and found our first flight this Sunday had about 75% passenger loads and full cargo load, and the second flight went with 100% passenger and cargo loads on Thursday,” said Rakesh Raicar, regional general manager for South Asia, Middle East and Africa, Cathay Pacific.

“Hyderabad’s economic rise and growing outbound travel demand make it a vital addition to our network,” he said, adding that India ranks among the top 10 markets for the airline.

With the addition of Hyderabad back on its network, Cathay Pacific now has 39 flights per week from five cities in the country – Delhi, Mumbai, Bengaluru, Chennai, and Hyderabad. From Sept, this will go up to 43 flights weekly once we increase the frequency from Hyderabad to five flights per week, Raicar added. Before Covid-19 struck, the carrier operated five weekly flights from the city.

He said traffic out of the city is currently driven by business and corporate, leisure, visiting friends and family, as well as student travel, as the airline is also preferred by the Telugu diaspora for onward connections to North America, as well as Australia and New Zealand.

Raicar said the airline also operates 13 freighters per week out of India but has no freighter service out of Hyderabad due to certain restrictions on bilateral agreements between governments.