Air New Zealand have announced that from 3rd March 2013, it will be dropping its Hong Kong to London Heathrow service.
The reason is simple according to Air New Zealand’s CEO Rob Fyfe:
“A comprehensive review of the Hong Kong – London service has confirmed the route would not become profitable in the foreseeable future”.
Approximately 70 members of staff will be hit who are based at London.
The aircraft which are involved in the ultra long haul runs which HKG-LHR will be redeployed on North American runs to San Francisco and Los Angeles to provide extra capacity (as well as running Air New Zealand’s AKL-LAX-LHR run).
Passengers already booked between Hong Kong and London (and vice versa) beyond 4th March will be rebooked onto Cathay Pacific services, with 8000 passengers to be rebooked over the ext few weeks. For those who collect Air New Zealand Airpoints, points will be honoured on these bookings too.
Meanwhile, as hinted in the title, Air New Zealand and Cathay Pacific have formed a Strategic agreement which will operate from 12th December 2012.
Rob Fyfe says:
“The agreement will see both carriers continue to operate the same frequency between Auckland and Hong Kong while introducing code share on each other’s flights as well as opening up excellent connections between New Zealand and Mainland China”
Frequent flyers will able to take advantage of this too with replicable earning between Air New Zealand Airpoints and Cathay Pacific’s The Marco Polo Club. Top Tier members will also receive reciprocal benefits when travelling on code-share flights, including lounge access, extra baggage allowances and many other priority services.
Whilst its sad seeing one of the “Round The World” routes ending, when it comes to the crunch, financial numbers must go ahead of pride…
Could this be driven by Air China’s interest in Cathay Pacific and perhaps a shift toward Star Alliance on CX’s part? I can’t imagine Singapore Airlines would be too happy in either case.
@Peter : The airline affected most if CX ever defects to Star is TG.
SQ’s primary focus is kangaroo routes and being the de facto national carrier for Indonesia. CX’s focus is TPAC and mainland China. Not totally competing agendas.
But it’s funny how CX is cozying up with ANZ while completely ignoring QF
It is strange that they aren’t partnering with another Star carrier like SQ or TG, or does ANZ not have nonstop service to SIN or BKK?
It is also strange that QF didn’t partner with a oneworld carrier. Sure seems like something is unstable in the alliance world. It would be nice if CX joined Star.
I too wonder if CX is growing wary of OneWorld….