Cathay Dragon, the regional airline of the Cathay Pacific Group, is introducing two new services, to Davao City in the Philippines and Medan in Indonesia, in October.
The carrier will begin services to Davao City on October 28 and to Medan on October 29, according to a Cathay Pacific official release. The flights will link Hong Kong with these rapidly growing Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) cities for the first time, it added.
“The cities are the eighth and ninth new destinations the group has announced during an unprecedented year of expansion and will boost Hong Kong’s connections with two of ASEAN’s founding member states,” said the statement.
Davao City, the main trade, business, and tourism center of the island of Mindanao in the southern Philippines, will be served four times a week—every Tuesday, Wednesday, Friday, and Sunday.
The new Hong Kong-Davao route will complement the group’s existing three services to Manila, Cebu, and Clark.
Medan, the capital of North Sumatra, will be served three times a week. The Hong Kong-Medan service will be on Mondays, Thursdays, and Saturdays, while the Medan-Hong Kong flight is on Tuesdays, Fridays, and Sundays.
Medan will be the fourth Indonesian destination served by the Cathay Pacific Group, following Jakarta, Denpasar (Bali), and Surabaya.
The new routes, the only nonstop flights between Hong Kong and Davao City and Hong Kong and Medan, will both be operated by Airbus A320 aircraft.
Cathay Pacific chief customer and commercial officer Paul Loo said the new services reflect the group’s commitment to growing its reach to destinations not otherwise served directly from Hong Kong, providing customers with more choices and strengthening Hong Kong’s status as Asia’s largest international aviation hub.
“Davao City and Medan are key trade and tourism centers in their respective regions and each looks set play an important role in the Belt and Road Initiative. As such, both present exciting opportunities for business and leisure travellers alike,” he said.
“Our convenient new services will capture the demand from Hong Kong and beyond, while at the same time providing customers in the Philippines and Indonesia with more options when connecting to the Cathay Pacific Group’s extensive Mainland China and international networks.”
Already this year, the group has launched services to Nanning and Jinan in China, and to Brussels in Belgium. Other new routes to take off in 2018 include Dublin in Ireland (June) and Washington, U.S.A. (September), as well as seasonal services to Copenhagen in Denmark (May), and South Africa’s Cape Town (November).
Photo courtesy of Cathay Pacific
