.gif)
Air Pacific managing director and chief executive John Campbell says there will be no changes to its fleet plans for its new Hong Kong route during the commencement of flight services in December.
He told FijiLive that the airline would deploy its current B747 and B767 fleet as appropriate.
“There are no changes in our fleet plans before the arrival of our 787’s in 2014,” Campbell said.
Air Pacific earlier this month decided to delay the commencement of flights to Hong Kong citing the impact of the global credit crunch on travel in Asia, which would subsequently impact travel in Hong Kong.
He had said this was a prudent financial decision given that the airline now required extensive lead selling time to generate necessary demands to ensure the success of the Hong Kong flights.
“Initial response to the Hong Kong service has been positive and we do expect the service to operate on a sound basis but we need to be sure that our launch process is successfully achieved,” Campbell said.
“We do expect to get more passengers from China and Tokyo via Hong Kong but additional flows of visitors are expected from UK, Europe, Middle East and India as well as the Hong Kong and Pearl Delta region, which has a population of 70 million and a high propensity for travel,” he said.
As noted, we have deferred commencement of the service in light of the global economic slow down which has affected Hong Kong and Asia markets and necessitated a prudent start to the service with ample lead marketing time to generate the necessary demand.
