Dragonair increases schedule for July

Dragonair has announced its schedule for the month of July, which will see a rise in the number of services operated compared with June and the resumption of flights to Sanya in Hainan Island.

Thirteen destinations will see increased frequencies, including from July 1, Beijing, with 28 services a week, and Kaohsiung and Taipei, with 21 flights a week subject to the lifting of the island's quarantine and visa restrictions.

The other destinations seeing more frequencies are: Chengdu; Fuzhou; Guilin; Hangzhou; Kota Kinabalu; Kunming; Nanjing; Phnom Penh; Phuket; and Qingdao. Flights to both Kota Kinabalu and Phuket will operate on a daily basis, with the service to the latter using larger capacity A330s to reflect the strong demand for holiday travel.

"The increases in our July schedule are in line with the gradual return of confidence following the lifting of the WHO travel advisory," said Chief Executive Officer Stanley Hui. "Frequencies will be about 63% of what we  had planned prior to the outbreak of SARS, highlighting the fact that the recovery process will be a gradual one."

From July 1-11 services will operate at 57% of Dragonair's original summer schedule, with 124 flights cancelled. This is up from 46% in June. From July 12 onwards, 63% of the schedule will be operated, with 108 flights remaining cancelled.

Flights to nine secondary destinations (Changsha, Chongqing, Dalian, Haikou, Hiroshima, Kuching, Sendai, Wuhan, Xian) in Dragonair's network remain suspended.