Airliners-India.com

[karatecatman]

Moved from the 'Air India News' thread

Air India release -- Govt. of India

INDIA HONG-KONG SIGN REVISED BILATERAL AIR SERVICES AGREEMENT

The long-standing deadlock on the issue of bilateral traffic rights between India and Hong Kong was broken with the two sides arriving at an agreement after prolonged discussions held at New Delhi on 17-18 December, 2007. The Indian delegation was led by Shri R.K. Singh, Joint Secretary in the Ministry of Civil Aviation while the Hong Kong delegation was led by Mr. Esmond Lee, Deputy Secretary, Transport and Housing Bureau, Hong Kong. Air India officials were also present.

As per the new agreement, 27 new services for each side will be possible on the Indian Hong Kong route. While the Indian side can operate these 27 services from any point in India, the Hong Kong carriers can operate 10 services to Delhi, 6 services to Mumbai and 11 services altogether to Bangalore, Chennai and Calcutta. Chennai was added as a new point of call during these talks for the Hong Kong side.

An agreement was also reached on the exercise of fifth freedom beyond traffic rights. Out of the 27 services, the carriers of India will be able to operate 14 services to West Coast North America including the cities of Los Angeles, San Francisco and Vancouver. Reciprocally, the Hong Kong carrier can exercise beyond fifth freedom rights through India on 14 services to Europe excluding UK.

The two sides also entered into a liberalized code share agreement which will enable the airlines of the two sides to code share through their respective territories to any beyond point either with each other carriers or with a third country carrier. Indian carriers are already looking at serving New Zealand through code share over Hong Kong with Air New Zealand.

With this agreement, there will be greater competition on the India Hong Kong route and the direct services between India and Hong Kong are set to increase. This will be in the overall interest of the traveling people and growth of trade and tourism.

[karatecatman]

Nimish wrote:
kcm - can you move this to a new thread or something - it's really not to do with AI and would benefit from secondary discussions on who will get the 14 5th freedom rights from HKG








Maut3000 wrote:


WAS LONG OVERDUE....
NOW 9W can think of adding Hong Kong to its network.
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PB

[Nimish]

Excellent news, though it's unfortunate that we did not manage a full open-skies deal with HKG. I would imagine that 9W will try and corner all 14 5th freedom frequencies ex-HKG, though I don't know if AI already uses some 5th freedom on their milk runs via HKG.

Does anyone know if the MoCA will give 9W the 7 needed 5th freedom frequencies out of the 14 available?

[Nimish]

[karatecatman]

[Karan69]

Long overdue as mentioned and a bit dissapointed that when it came it came quite less---Just 27 extra

[Karan69]

What are the additional services expected from HKG i am sure CX will jump on all available before Oasis HKG can even find the aircrafts needed to operate the India routes.

DEL should go double daily to 14

BOM should go 6x non-stop to HKG or daily on BOM-BKK-HKG [they did operate it during open skies last year so they do have rights , they do not have additional rights to DXB though]

So 4 current + 6 non-stop OR Current route daily + 3 non-stop

BLR should go 4 x weekly

MAA and CCU should get 3x each

Karan

[Nimish]

[nalini123]

Thank god!! I'm fortunate to see the revised bilaterals in my lifetime

[nalini123]

BTW are they dropping BKK? is that stop still needed?

[texdravid]

Rest assured that a Hong Kong carrier, i.e. Cathay will start MAA/BLR-HKG first, with 3-5x a week.

Air India, that paradigm of ineptitude, will concentrate on their favorite BOM/DEL routes and after Cathay makes a big success on their nonstop Chennai/HYD/Bangalore runs, will in 10 years begin MAA-CCU-BKK-SIN-HKG, claim it as "groundbreaking" and wonder why uppity Tamils won't use their maharajah in the sky.

Just watch, folks. I am basing my prediction on how MAA-Europe turned out in the 90's, with Euro carriers taking the lead and making cold cash for a decade or more before AI got off its mutton roll and gave MAA the time of day.
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[nalini123]

[B772]

[nalini123]

Very true. and with the revised Bilaterals as Russel Peter says


" SQ/TG gonna get a hurt real Bad"

LOL

[Megatop]

[LAXDESI]

[blrsea]

I would have liked a daily BLR-HKG service. And I believe there is traffic to support it as connection to US west coast will be easier beyond HKG. SQ/TG require two stops from BLR to US west coast.

Looks like 9W/CX will beat IT to the BLR-SFO/LAX markets!!

[Jaysit]

How much O/D traffic is there from MAA/BLR/HYD etc to Hong Kong?

If it isn't substantial, the problem that carriers like AI and 9W will have again is that the hub carrier (CX) will eat their lunch using Hub Hong Kong for pax from South India transiting to North America and East Asia. Airlines operating out of well-developed, advanced city hubs will always have this advantage

Daily 738s could well be used to test the waters. Or alternately, a BLR-MAA-HKG flight on an A332 operating 4x weekly, with 738s operating on the remaining days. With AI joining Star Alliance, these flights could be timed to UA schedules, although I'm sure that SQ will be hocked off given how it cleans up on Silicon Valley bound pax from South India.

[avbuff]

Finally, we get to see a sensible schedule of CX. good for people bound for HKG.

[LAXDESI]

[Jaysit]

Ive said this before, but it still boggles my mind why 9W aren't factoring in a BLR-BRU-SFO flight into their schedule. If there is as much need for a direct BLR to SFO flight, then what are they waiting for? Would a delayed BOM-PVG/HKG-SFO flight be more profitable? And how on earth does it help anyone from BLR?

And why can't 9W do a daily BLR-BRU-SFO on an A332 and a BOM-PVG/HKG-SFO?

[ryder1650]

[Jaysit]

ryder1650 says :"Connecting SFO to just BOM is a little short-sighted as there is a huge amount of traffic from SFO to the DEL area (tech centers in NOIDA, Gurgaon, etc.). "

Agreed.

However, with respect to your comment about Lufthansa and the BLR-SFO route, what difference does it make if Lufthansa owns the one-stop flight to SFO from BLR. The market isn't stagnant that it can support only one daily flight, is it? If that were the case, then BA and AF wouldn't have expanded to BLR as they've done. Currently, it appears that some pax are going through Changi and having to endure 8 hour layovers! 9W, with its reputation in India, could easily siphon off those who are enduring this nonsense.

[Nimish]

[Megatop]

[Jaysit]

[nalini123]

Jaysit , I went that extra mile when I went to LAX this October , J class fares on LH , BA were more at that time. SQ service standards made me forget the inconvinience I faced.

[Megatop]

[quote="Jaysit"][quote="Megatop"]

[nalini123]

[ryder1650]

[G-BYGB]

I think once when BLR is connected to HKG, we might see LH,AF and BA loose some of its share in this market bcoz most of the pax will find it convinient to travel to the west coast of US via HKG.

In the future we might see 9W keeping HKG as its mini hub tht will connect to the west coast of US.
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[LAXDESI]

I wanted to see if AI could team up with UA and AC to offer one-stop services to NA west coast. Here's the UA/AC schedule:

NA-HKG
UA LAX 12:00 pm HKG 6:15 pm+1
UA SFO 1:03 pm HKG 6:00pm +1
AC YVR 1:50 pm HKG 6:30 pm+1

HKG-NA
UA HKG 12:20 pm LAX 9:35 am
UA HKG 11:45 am SFO 9:17 am
AC HKG 12:45 pm YVR 10:00am

AI could offer daily non-stops from both BOM and DEL, timed to arrive at HKG around 8:00 am, which gives about a comfotable 4-5 hours for making connections to UA/AC flights to LAX/SFO/YVR. Then the aircraft could continue on to NRT or ICN, and return to HKG by 8:00 pm and pick up connecting passengers from UA/AC flights, and then continue on to BOM/DEL.

[LAXDESI]

Adding to my previous post, AI could also connect to NRT,ICN,PEK, and SHA from HKG, and offer services from BOM,DEL,BLR, and MAA on the Indian side.

[tayaramecanici]

Any HK veterans here who can tell me how far is Guangzhou and Zhuhai airports from HKG in terms of travel times, mainly road or rail.? I 've been to Schenzen in 1991 and know its like another suburb of HKG.

The reason i ask is, its not long before these 3 airports of Guangdong province will be competing with HKG for the so called ''Scissor Networks''.

[Prajay]

There is a Plan by AI.

Instead of having a BLR-SFO nonstop

AI is loooking for BLR-HKG-SFO

Prajay
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[LAXDESI]

[Jaysit]

I guess AI's looking at a BLR-HKG-SFO flight in lieu of a BLR-SFO nonstop because of the "Commander" shortage?

Silly airline.

Left hand doesn't know what the right hand's doing.

[VABBy]

I think AI is already operating to HKG from DEL non stop. Besides my personal opinion is that indian cities are already underserved. With new flights being deployed by pvt indian carrier we might see a drop in the yields on BA,LH or SQ but then there are plenty of people who travel so the pax figures might not be hit.
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[G-BYGB]

We are still seeing more demand from the operators for routes that are already well served, like LHR,SIN,FRA and middle east for examples.Most of the airlines serving these sectors are demanding for more flights, some of them want double dailies as well.

I think AI and 9W should focus on other metros apart from MUM and DEL. bcoz at the moment pax traveling from BLR,MAA and CCU have only one flight to choose, i.e to LHR,PAR and FRA.If they don't get the ticket they'll have to make a one stop to either MUM or DEL.

I feel AI,9W and other Indian carriers should start new flights to HKG from these cities rather than the traditional way of starting it from MUM or DEL.
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[Karan69]