A route in focus: Hong Kong-Newark

Cathay Pacific’s sales director, Eastern USA, Sebastien Granier, talks about the new Newark service, and why social media will be key to marketing the new route.

How will the new Newark route fit in with your existing services to JFK?

It will allow us to cover New York City from both major international airports, offering tremendous convenience and schedule flexibility.

Who is the Newark flight aimed at, compared with the JFK service?

Business travellers make up a large portion of our NYC-area travellers, so we expect that to stay consistent, and there is also a great deal of leisure travel with many people from Asian communities returning home to visit family and friends. As a three-class cabin (business, premium economy and economy), we expect a good mix of business and leisure travel. We expect passengers to originate from New Jersey, as well as corporations in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania and the west side of Manhattan. Newark is also easily accessed from Wall Street and Chinatown.

How does Newark fit into the rest of your US network?

Newark is a great complement to our existing four gateways (San Francisco, Los Angeles, Chicago and New York–JFK) and will allow Cathay Pacific to further expand on the East Coast. It is really an expansion of Cathay Pacific’s existing JFK services. We have an established reputation for service, product, and connections across Asia. In order to grow further in the New York area, we had to go across the Hudson River – there was a large market we weren’t tapping in New Jersey and Philadelphia. It’s about convenience and giving NYC-area residents more opportunities to fly with us.

What sort of demand is Cathay currently seeing for flights between Hong Kong and China and the US? 

There is strong demand. Finance, high-end retail, luxury goods and manufacturing industries are all fuelling demand.

What connecting opportunities will passengers have at Newark with your partners?

There will be connectivity with our oneworld partner, American Airlines, as well as interline partner, JetBlue, but we expect that most passengers will be from the local area.

How important is Dragonair feed for your trans-Pacific services?

Dragonair is a very important part of the strategy. With an early morning arrival into Hong Kong (6am), the Newark flight offers excellent connections to Cathay and Dragonair flights across Asia. Using HKIA as connecting hub and the extensive and growing network of Dragonair will ensure the success of Cathay Pacific from Newark to beyond HKG destinations.

What role will cargo play in the Newark route? 

Cargo is always an important part of the equation. New Jersey and Pennsylvania have a lot of pharmaceutical corporations for example, and these would be ideal clients for the new route.

How did you use social media in the run-up to the Newark route announcement? 

Social media played – and will continue to play – a big role in the Newark route announcement. In the days leading up to the announcement, we used Facebook as a vehicle to build buzz by playing a game of “guess the US city” that we would be announcing. We asked the public to hashtag their response #CXnewroute for a chance to win a Cathay Pacific model airplane. It generated a great deal of interest and speculation over a 48-hour period. We expect to rely heavily on social media as an effective means of communicating our Newark launch news – from fare sales, to sharing photos and information about this new route.

This article features in Routes News 2013 Issue 6

Source:Routes news