Hong Kong Is Giving Out Half A Million Free Flight Tickets

Hong Kong plans to supply 500,000 free tickets to deliver vacationers again to the worldwide hub. Cathay Pacific, HK Categorical, and Hong Kong Airways will all be handing out the tickets in phases, beginning with vacationers from Southeast Asia on March 1st. This system does not come as a shock, given the federal government has been shopping for tickets through the pandemic to assist home airways.

Tickets lastly launched

Again in 2020, the Hong Kong Airport Authority bought half one million air tickets from 4 home airways (together with now shuttered Cathay Dragon) at a value of HK$2 billion ($255mn). The aim of the plan was easy: assist the territory’s carriers with out extra bailouts or loans that might enhance debt. Now, after three years, these tickets will lastly make it to potential guests.

As part of its ‘Good day Hong Kong’ marketing campaign to deliver again locked-out vacationers, the federal government will distribute the tickets via the three airline companions: Cathay Pacific, HK Categorical, and Hong Kong Airways. The primary section kicks off on March 1st and can goal vacationers in Southeast Asian international locations, adopted by mainland China in April, and Northeast Asia and different long-haul markets from Could onward.

Photograph: e X p o s e / Shutterstock

The giveaway will launch quickly, and Cathay is the primary airline to open up its web page for registrations. ‘World of Winners’ is the title of the promotion, and people might want to register with the airline after which maintain a watch out for when the choice course of begins. Count on to see extra particulars rolled out within the coming weeks as the subsequent two carriers launch their applications.

China is open

Whereas Hong Kong started stress-free its COVID restrictions in mid-2022, mainland China solely did so on January eighth, lifting all quarantine necessities. Now, because the nation lastly reopens to worldwide site visitors, it’s hoping that it might deliver again hundreds of thousands of yearly guests as effectively. Hong Kong’s aviation and tourism trade has been crushed by the pandemic, with annual guests falling from 55.9 million in 2019 to only over 600,000 in 2022.

It should be an uphill battle for town to regain its standing as a world air transit and tourism hub. Nonetheless, it’s not shying away from the challenges, with the free tickets just one a part of a broader marketing campaign to spice up numbers. The opening of the mainland will likely be an enormous enhance as effectively, particularly with three years of pent-up demand now really actionable.

Photograph: Terry Ok / Shutterstock

Issues had a rocky begin this yr after Japan restricted flights from Hong Kong, Macao, and mainland China due to an enormous surge in infections within the latter. Nonetheless, with the state of affairs now stabilizing, we must always be capable of see airways increase their schedules vastly this summer season and past.

Not all quiet

Whereas one would possibly assume the aviation trade was in hibernation in Hong Kong, this wasn’t the case. The pandemic noticed the arrival of a brand new startup, Larger Bay Airways, which started flying final July. In the meantime, Cathay Pacific opted to shutter its regional subsidiary, Cathay Dragon, creating one airline solely. As town emerges from the pandemic absolutely, anticipate to see it struggle exhausting to regain its crown within the Asian market.

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