Hong Kong Airlines arms up for aggressive competition
Hong Kong Airlines has pushed forward its launch of non-stop services to San Francisco, New York, and London with flagship Airbus A350-900XWB this year.
This decision is followed by their launch of its daily Hong Kong - Los Angeles service last December, also operated by A359s. The carrier is now owning three A350-900s, with plans to purchase a total of 15 of the jets directly from Airbus and to lease a total of six from third parties.
Hong Kong Airlines A350-900 taking off from Toulouse (Photo by Airbus)
The carrier is completing routes with an extremely high competition. Without the help of an alliance, Hong Kong Airlines is placing itself into an aggressive competitor status. Despite this, their spokesman claimed that they are not interested in participating in a price war (although its fares are very competitive).
With 3 A350s in service, Hong Kong Airlines is still falling behind Cathay in terms of long haul fleet numbers
Hong Kong Airlines is one of the fastest growing airlines in the world, however it still doesn't belong to any alliances. This makes the carrier isolated from mutal cooperation. Alliance cooperations allow airlines to have coordinated schedules. (for example Cathay Pacific is able to provide more flights than Hong Kong Airlines on the HK-LA route through ONEWORLD cooperation with American Airlines). Joining alliances also improves frequent flyer program while saving costs through sharing airport lounges, ground handling and check-in, marketing and sales efforts and maintenance. Hong Kong Airlines currently have code sharing between mostly Asian carriers including Asiana and China Eastern Airlines. With the carrier is set double its fleet by 2020, the carrier may set up a new alliance with Virgin Australia and other HNA owned Chinese airlines. It is difficult for Hong Kong Airlines to join traditional alliance as they all contain Chinese carriers already. The carrier's short haul subsidy Hong Kong Express is a founding member of low cost U-FLY alliance which consists of mostly HNA owned airlines.
The airline is recently ranked the second best regional carrier in the world, has a stellar on-time performance record and is rapidly expanding its long-haul service. Using 'affordable luxury' as their watchword, their flagship A350 has its own power outlet and USB port on each seat The aircraft will also offer in-flight Wi-Fi, the first 15 minutes of which will be free for all passengers.
Economy and business class seat on their flagship A359 (Photo by Airbus)
Like its direct competitor Cathay Pacific, business class is arranged in a staggered 1 – 2 – 1 layout with seats alternating being closer to the aisle or the window on the sides, and being closer together or separated by wide armrests in the middle. It is the same kind of layout which we can find on Thai or Emirates A380s and several of Asiana’s aircraft types.
In addition, they are trying to upgrade their Airbus A330 aircraft, which are used on long-haul destinations such as Gold Coast, Auckland, and Vancouver. Even though there is no in-flight television on their A330 economy class, passengers are all given a free loaner iPad mini 4 pre-loaded with movies and television shows.
The company is constantly aiming to deliver service that is beyond the expectations of its customers. Its “Above and Beyond” program, for example, will arrange something special inflight for passengers, if requested in advance (and for a fee). 'If a passenger wants to plan a marriage proposal mid-air, we can help them do that,' their spokesman once said.
Also, the airline took advantage of the new concourse at its home base airport (HKG) and accomplished 99.5%of their flights being connected by gate bridges.
photo by arrownteng/
In addition to customer services, Hong Kong Airlines is also trying to reduce operational costs by using electronic aircraft operation manuals. The carrier is Web Manuals's first Asian Passenger Airline Customer. Starting from this year, Hong Kong Airlines will enter a full digitization of their operations manuals with the help of Web Manuals. With 31 Airbus A330 and A350 aircraft scheduled to enter into service in the coming years, replacing papers with Ipads will bring significant time and cost savings, ease of use benefits, as well as improved regulatory compliance and flight safety for the airline.Web Manuals has more than 130 customers worldwide, spread across Africa, the Americas, Asia-Pacific, Europe and the Middle East.