DRAGONAIR SETS DAILY PASSENGER RECORD

Dragonair set a new high for the number of passengers flown in one day on April 12, carrying 10,342 people. The airline’s previous record of 10,166 was set on October 20 last year.

“Although Easter is a traditionally busy period for travel, this year it was preceded by the ‘census holiday’ and many people expected numbers to be down. We’re happy to have shown that this was not the case,” said James Yeung, Dragonair’s General Manager, Commercial.

“The high number of passengers points to the strong demand in the market for our flights – one of the reasons we are currently expanding our fleet. As part of our expansion programme we will add two new A330 passenger aircraft this year, in May and June.”

The additional capacity will be used to boost frequencies on several routes during the summer schedule, with flights to Shanghai and Beijing seeing the biggest increases. Shanghai will have 46 flights a week, while there will be 32 services a week to the Chinese capital.

Dragonair is a Hong Kong-based airline, operating a fleet of five A330-300s, three A321s and seven A320s in addition to a Boeing 747-200 freighter. It will almost double its fleet by the end of 2005. The airline’s passenger network covers 27 destinations across the Asia-Pacific region, including 17 in mainland China, while its cargo network connects the markets of Europe, the Middle East and China.