Another Air Route Restored

[NxaiPan]

From 1 July Dragonair will be flying 4 times a week CNX to HKG, see timetable below:

Hong Kong – Chiang Mai

Wed, Sat KA232 15:05-17:10

Thu, Sun KA232 14:00-16:00

Chiang Mai – Hong Kong

Wed, Sun KA233 18:20-22:20

Thu, Sat KA233 18:30-22:30

This is initially only until 30 Sept but will throw up a different range of possible connections to the US, Europe and regionally.

Given the Air Asia CNX-MFM flight from 22 May as well it is good news for Chiang Mai, though I am a little mystified about the July-September timing of the Dragonair flights.

Edited April 23, 2012 by NxaiPan

[hellodolly]

Dragonair

That is a new one to me is it a economy air line like Air Asia or a regular one?

[zippydedodah]

going to dragonair website does not show any flights to CM...how did you get that info?

oops... it is not offered on the front page of website, but if you click thru to schedules, it is indeed available.

thanks for the headsup

Edited April 23, 2012 by zippydedodah

[NxaiPan]

Dragonair

That is a new one to me is it a economy air line like Air Asia or a regular one?

It's owned by Cathay Pacific and focuses on regional flights from HKG to Asian destinations especially in the PRC, see below:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dragonair

Overall a pretty decent airline.

[monty1412]

Dragonair

That is a new one to me is it a economy air line like Air Asia or a regular one?

Pretty good airline, no crap or carry on like Air Asia or Jetfart.

[hellodolly]

Dragonair

That is a new one to me is it a economy air line like Air Asia or a regular one?

Pretty good airline, no crap or carry on like Air Asia or Jetfart.

That is good news as long as the prices are not to munch higher.

[WinnieTheKhwai]

That's BRILLIANT!!!!!

And it's actually better than 'restored'.. the previous service was by some charter airline with two weekly flights, catering to HK weekend holiday makers and not much use for most international connections. This DragonAir service is MUCH better.

And very good connections too, for example:

The 15:05 flight on Saturday for example gets you to HK in time for an afternoon departure to all of Cathay's non-stop North America flights (JFK, Toronto, Vancouver, LAX, SFO) So you leave Chiang Mai Saturday afternoon, and you get to New York before 11pm the same day! (With the time difference, but okay) And of course bypassing BKK, a major blessing.

Edited April 23, 2012 by WinnieTheKhwai

[folium]

That's BRILLIANT!!!!!

And it's actually better than 'restored'.. the previous service was by some charter airline with two weekly flights, catering to HK weekend holiday makers and not much use for most international connections. This DragonAir service is MUCH better.

And very good connections too, for example:

The 15:05 flight on Saturday for example gets you to HK in time for an afternoon departure to all of Cathay's non-stop North America flights (JFK, Toronto, Vancouver, LAX, SFO) So you leave Chiang Mai Saturday afternoon, and you get to New York before 11pm the same day! (With the time difference, but okay) And of course bypassing BKK, a major blessing.

Sorry to rain on your parade but you are reading it the wrong way round!

The HKG-CNX flights are afternoon departures, the returning CNX-HKG flights leave at 1820/1830hrs and get you into Hong Kong at either 2220 or 2230hrs. Still in time though to pick up the late evening bank of connections.

[chiang mai]

I like Dragonair, any idea on pricing for this route?

[WinnieTheKhwai]

That's BRILLIANT!!!!!

And it's actually better than 'restored'.. the previous service was by some charter airline with two weekly flights, catering to HK weekend holiday makers and not much use for most international connections. This DragonAir service is MUCH better.

And very good connections too, for example:

The 15:05 flight on Saturday for example gets you to HK in time for an afternoon departure to all of Cathay's non-stop North America flights (JFK, Toronto, Vancouver, LAX, SFO) So you leave Chiang Mai Saturday afternoon, and you get to New York before 11pm the same day! (With the time difference, but okay) And of course bypassing BKK, a major blessing.

Sorry to rain on your parade but you are reading it the wrong way round!

The HKG-CNX flights are afternoon departures, the returning CNX-HKG flights leave at 1820/1830hrs and get you into Hong Kong at either 2220 or 2230hrs. Still in time though to pick up the late evening bank of connections.

Ah okay, that's fine too. Loads of departures to North America around midnight. (arriving in the morning is in many ways better actually) Thanks for pointing that out!

Edited April 23, 2012 by WinnieTheKhwai

[WinnieTheKhwai]

I like Dragonair, any idea on pricing for this route?

Doesn't say. But I'm imagining it to be similar to (or a bit cheaper than) BKK-HKG on Cathay.

And you're saving the CNX-BKK flight of course.

[jko]

I hope this airline sustains sufficient passenger numbers through the low season to keep it flying - by offering competitive inclusive packages with hotel/transfers etc., both CNX-HKG and vice-versa. There would certainly be a demand here amongst residents, Thai and farang, and incoming visitors from HKG would be a boon for our CNX hotels.

As I remember, the previous operator on this route (Hong Kong Express) relied on selling seats, experienced low load factors, and it flopped as a result. I never saw a HKG package with hotel actively promoted.

Good luck therefore to Dragonair.

[folium]

I hope this airline sustains sufficient passenger numbers through the low season to keep it flying - by offering competitive inclusive packages with hotel/transfers etc., both CNX-HKG and vice-versa. There would certainly be a demand here amongst residents, Thai and farang, and incoming visitors from HKG would be a boon for our CNX hotels.

As I remember, the previous operator on this route (Hong Kong Express) relied on selling seats, experienced low load factors, and it flopped as a result. I never saw a HKG package with hotel actively promoted.

Good luck therefore to Dragonair.

Maybe I am just being obtuse but why would Hong Kong folk choose to come to CM July-September in the wet season?

OK it's HK school holidays but CM is hardly a kids/family destination. Or am I just missing something here?

[WinnieTheKhwai]

> Maybe I am just being obtuse but why would Hong Kong folk choose

> to come to CM July-September in the wet season?

> OK it's HK school holidays but CM is hardly a kids/family destination.

> Or am I just missing something here?

Golf.

And good value for money in general.

It doesn't rain all that much (esp. mornings and early afternoons) until we hit September.

[folium]

> Maybe I am just being obtuse but why would Hong Kong folk choose

> to come to CM July-September in the wet season?

> OK it's HK school holidays but CM is hardly a kids/family destination.

> Or am I just missing something here?

Golf.

And good value for money in general.

It doesn't rain all that much (esp. mornings and early afternoons) until we hit September.

Ah Golf, strange affliction, but if it gets punters here.........

[el jefe]

That's BRILLIANT!!!!!

And it's actually better than 'restored'.. the previous service was by some charter airline with two weekly flights, catering to HK weekend holiday makers and not much use for most international connections. This DragonAir service is MUCH better.

And very good connections too, for example:

The 15:05 flight on Saturday for example gets you to HK in time for an afternoon departure to all of Cathay's non-stop North America flights (JFK, Toronto, Vancouver, LAX, SFO) So you leave Chiang Mai Saturday afternoon, and you get to New York before 11pm the same day! (With the time difference, but okay) And of course bypassing BKK, a major blessing.

Sorry to rain on your parade but you are reading it the wrong way round!

The HKG-CNX flights are afternoon departures, the returning CNX-HKG flights leave at 1820/1830hrs and get you into Hong Kong at either 2220 or 2230hrs. Still in time though to pick up the late evening bank of connections.

Ah okay, that's fine too. Loads of departures to North America around midnight. (arriving in the morning is in many ways better actually) Thanks for pointing that out!

"Loads"????

I didn't check other destinations but it definitely doesn't work for JFK flights. The minimum layover is 7 hours from JFK to CNX (minimum connection time at HKG is 100 or 120 minutes) and the only good connection going from CNX to JFK makes a stop in Vancouver. These flights weren't designed to make east coast North American connections.

[WinnieTheKhwai]

"Loads"????

I didn't check other destinations but it definitely doesn't work for JFK flights. The minimum layover is 7 hours from JFK to CNX (minimum connection time at HKG is 100 or 120 minutes) and the only good connection going from CNX to JFK makes a stop in Vancouver. These flights weren't designed to make east coast North American connections.

You're right about the Vancouver stop for the JFK flight, I had that once. (though somehow landed a business class upgrade for Vancouver - JFK so it wasn't all bad). But there are plenty other desitnations in North America that leave around midnight. You can easily make those; HKIA is pretty efficient and they're not too strict on 2 hours. One hour and a bit is plenty.

[WinnieTheKhwai]

> Maybe I am just being obtuse but why would Hong Kong folk choose

> to come to CM July-September in the wet season?

> OK it's HK school holidays but CM is hardly a kids/family destination.

> Or am I just missing something here?

Golf.

And good value for money in general.

It doesn't rain all that much (esp. mornings and early afternoons) until we hit September.

Ah Golf, strange affliction, but if it gets punters here.........

Yeah, I don't see the attraction in golf either, but it's clearly popular. Also don't forget the excellent hotels and restaurants; I just got back from a dinner meeting with a HK contact at the Oriental Dhara Dhevi, their French restaurant. Pretty much top end for Chiang Mai price wise, but the guy thought it really cheap and said the prices wouldn't look out of place if they were HK dollars in Hong Kong for a similar venue.. I can kind of see the attraction to stay at one of the really nice 5 star or boutique hotels for a couple days and enjoy the town, the food, the spas, and do some typical tourist stuff involving elephants and some shopping. You could go on an 'art spending spree' at the Sunday market and spend money that's average to high here ( 10K baht on a big painting) but really insignificant in almost any other place in the world. And there's some nice stuff about if you look carefully. Then word of mouth brings more people.

Living here it's easy sometimes to take the attractions for granted, especially for those on a bigger budget than my day-to-day.

[jonwilly]

I was told yesterday that a second runway is all but completed at CNX.

Wondered why but if true maybe more international flights.

john

[WinnieTheKhwai]

I was told yesterday that a second runway is all but completed at CNX.

By who?

[chiang mai]

A second runway is only part of the picture of what's needed, gates, facilities and parking will also be needed soon. On the subject of parking, I notice that the expanded parking area outside International is now usually quite full, it's going to be quite a battle trying to reclaim the parking area from the rental car companies, who gave them "ownership" of such a large ammount of prime parking space anyway. I sometimes use that space to park temporarily if I need to run in and buy a ticket and you'd be amazed how possessive the staff are, despite there being huge numbers of unused spaces, me thinks me smells mafiosa.

[Thailand]

I don't see Hongkongers coming here to play golf,too may corporate memberships there and just over the border in China proper.

The more likely route to bring in golfers is the AA Macau route for mainland Chinese who are now really getting in to it. More would be here now if it wasn't for the airport closures and the April massacres.I know of one group of 40 for certain who cancelled in the past but they were coming via BK.Hopefully the new route will bring in a few more. Currently talking with a friend who has a couple of pro shops in China who is considering trying to get a group together.

The Dragonair July to Sept scheule does seem quite strange unless they have already got tour groups booked,can't see too many takers. Both Hong Kong Express and Orient Thai have both tried the route in the past and failed to keep going.

Hopefully Dragonair have something up their sleeve that will make if different. But for me the route most likely to succeed will be AA Macau/ChiangMai-but I am often wrong!

[tigerbeer]

would be great if AA started flights between Chiang mai and Penang .

[WinnieTheKhwai]

I was told yesterday that a second runway is all but completed at CNX.

By who?

And a follow up question: Where would it go?

Keep in mind that for independent parallel approaches you need 4300 feet separation. You could go just a bit closer when coordinating approaches to stagger them.

This of course completely hypothetically; CNX doesn't get enough planes that you would actually use more than one runway at the time. Absolute worst case is having a plane wait a couple minutes before takeoff, or an incoming plane making a circle around town: not the end of the world. BKK does this all the time, sending planes out to sea and slotting them in for their approach. And at BKK too the capacity limitation is in the gates, not the dual parallel runways.

So the most likely explanation seems to be that someone is confusing some work on the taxiways with building another runway. ( Sometimes people in the real world are even less reliable than Thaivisa members. )

Edited April 24, 2012 by WinnieTheKhwai

[jonwilly]

By mate 30 year resident, I'll interrogate him next time we have a chat.

john

[Thailand]

would be great if AA started flights between Chiang mai and Penang .

As they already fly Chiang Mai/KL ,KL/Penang what do you think of the chances of them flying direct ChiangMai/Penang would be?

[Ricardo]

would be great if AA started flights between Chiang mai and Penang .

As they already fly Chiang Mai/KL ,KL/Penang what do you think of the chances of them flying direct ChiangMai/Penang would be?

Quite high, since their business-model means that they often link between secondary destinations, for example their highly-popular CNX-HKT (twice daily & a rumoured third flight planned) or CNX-HDY.

[koosdeboer]

I was told yesterday that a second runway is all but completed at CNX.

By who?

And a follow up question: Where would it go?

Keep in mind that for independent parallel approaches you need 4300 feet separation. You could go just a bit closer when coordinating approaches to stagger them.

This of course completely hypothetically; CNX doesn't get enough planes that you would actually use more than one runway at the time. Absolute worst case is having a plane wait a couple minutes before takeoff, or an incoming plane making a circle around town: not the end of the world. BKK does this all the time, sending planes out to sea and slotting them in for their approach. And at BKK too the capacity limitation is in the gates, not the dual parallel runways.

So the most likely explanation seems to be that someone is confusing some work on the taxiways with building another runway. ( Sometimes people in the real world are even less reliable than Thaivisa members. )

It could be a longer replacement runway, maybe even with an underpass for the 108. There has been speculation in the past about a longer runway.

[WinnieTheKhwai]

I know it was debated, but you can't extend the runway there significantly even when tunneling the 108; you run into the Transport Dept buildings and Big C Hang Dong: http://g.co/maps/4b92d

And again: a longer runway doesn't bring much benefit unless you'd find an airline crazy enough to do an intercontinental flight direct out of Chiang Mai. (747 and A380 can take off just fine for regional flights, but not to go long haul to Europe or the US. Of course that's again hypothetical as the market need is just not there.)

[jko]

Here's a snippet from TTG Asia Magazine - seems it's targetted at HKG school holidays, which sounds a bit inadequate to fill the 158 seats on Dragonair's A320 four times a week - that's over 600 passengers each way, every week for 3 months. Presume they must know what they're doing though.

Chiang Mai gets new flight connections to Macau, Hong Kong

Chami Jotisalikorn, Bangkok, April 19, 2012

NORTHERN Thailand's regional connections are growing, with two airlines launching new routes between Chiang Mai and Greater China. These new routes will expand the Thai market for China, as well as provide easier access to Thailand's second largest city.

Thai AirAsia will launch the inaugural Chiang Mai-Macau flight on May 22 using an Airbus A320. The daily flight will depart Chiang Mai at 16.15 and depart Macau at 20.45. The new route will also allow travellers from Chiang Mai to connect easily to Hong Kong via a one-hour ferry ride.

Meanwhile, Dragonair will introduce a Hong Kong-Chiang Mai route using an Airbus A320 from July 1. This seasonal service will operate between July 1 and September 30 during Hong Kong’s school vacation period, with four weekly flights on Wednesdays, Thursdays, Saturdays and Sundays. The Hong Kong-based airline will be the only carrier operating direct non-stop services between the two cities.