Originally Posted by
JW95
Does anyone know when (or if) Cathay are likely to upgauge their LGW-HKG route to the A351? From what I've seen, the route has been incredibly popular since CX's return to LGW, going from 4/weekly to daily in just 8 months, and having spoken with cabin crew, the flight always seems full, even outside holiday season. MAN has already seen the A351, so I can't see why LGW won't be seeing it. Also, are there any plans to expand the route beyond the current daily service? Given the recent political situation in HKG, I appreciate it that CX may wish to hold off expansion, but I don't see why LGW shouldn't be able to support a double daily service to HKG further down the line.
Just because the plane is leaving full, doesn't necessarily mean the route is a money spinner!
If you do a flight search for routes to Asia or Australia and type in the departing city as just "London" so then it searches all London airports, the pricing for flights for Cathay Pacific flights out of Gatwick will nearly always be cheaper than the Heathrow flights. Usually with a price difference of £20-50 on economy routes, while it isn't a huge difference, when you multiply that by 200+ passengers it makes a big difference, and gives passengers an incentive to fly this route as opposed to the Heathrow option.
Im sure the route is profitable, but the airline probably doesn't want to dilute prices further by offering further capacity. They can continue to offer the LGW option for the more price sensitive passengers wanting to fly CX and in time drive the prices up to match that of Heathrow, and once this is done if demand remains offer the A350-1000 then.
Very similar with China Airlines flying to Taipei, (the Taiwan carrier, not to be confused with the China Mainland carriers), which offers an excellent product on their A350's, and in my opinion is better than CX, but are usually are substantially cheaper. Primarily due them being quite unknown in the UK market and Gatwick not being able to offer the premium prices of Heathrow.
Flown then twice to Australia, and flights have been 90+% full in all classes, but they seem reluctant to increase their five flights a week. I've noticed as they become more established the prices have increased and likely to be there is more demand to fly them and not the need to discount seats.