“Our immediate aim is to fly back daily...we will go back to daily service (Bangalore-Hong Kong) very soon...Because of the financial tsunami, we had to reduce a little bit,” Dragonair Chief Executive Officer James Tong said.

Dragonair, a member of Cathy Pacific group, had launched a daily passenger service to Bangalore in July last year. But due to the economic downturn, the company cut down the service to four times a week early this year. Tong was speaking at the sidelines of the celebrations to mark the launch of Dragonair’s new service from Hong Kong to Guangzhou recently.

At one stage, the business was quite low. The first class and the business class were the badly affected during the financial tsunami. “Now the worst is over. During the last two months, we have started slowly picking up the business again. If you look at advanced bookings, we are seeing some kinds of business coming back,” Tong explained.

He said India with a lot of variety, has immense potential to drive the market. “With promotions and all kinds of efforts that we are putting together, India will become a hot destination because there are lots of varieties in India...It has good food, lots of sceneries, mountains and resort areas. So, it’s a matter of promotion that’s required,” he stated.

The potential, Tong said, mainly lies in the leisure sector. “The travel and tourism sector is still an untapped market. Same in the other end. India to Hong Kong..I would say both both …leisure and corporate. We hope to also see more and more Indian tourists coming to Hong Kong and China,” he added.

Asked which sector looks promising in future, the CEP said his airlines does not want to rely on any particular sector. Instead, he said, he is looking at diversifying the base.
“If we depend on, say, the financial services. If the sector develops some problem, then we will be in trouble. Hence, we hope to diversify the base to businessmen, students, tourists and traders…everything,” he said.