Asian carrier Cathay Pacific Airways has confirmed it will terminate its route between Hong Kong and the Russian capital, Moscow from the start of June. The airline said the decision to close the link from June 1, 2015 was due to “commercial reasons”.
Cathay Pacific introduced the link between Hong Kong International Airport and Moscow’s Domodedovo Airport in July 2010 and operated a three times weekly rotation using an Airbus A340-300.
“High operating costs have made it difficult to operate profitably on the route while the number of passengers travelling between Hong Kong and Russia has been declining,” said the airline in a statement.
Cathay Pacific says it remains committed to serving Europe and will continue to identify opportunities to strengthen its services to and from the continent. The airline added Manchester to its network in December 2014 and is scheduled to launch new services to Zurich and Düsseldorf on March 29, 2015 and September 1, 2015, respectively.
The airline will maintain a presence in Moscow to coordinate sales activities for flights through its other gateways in Western Europe, the Middle East and Asia. Connectivity with Moscow and other points in Russia will be maintained through oneworld partner S7 Airlines and other oneworld alliance member airlines.
In our analysis we highlight segment demand on the route since Cathay Pacific entered the market almost five years ago. The data shows that the Asian carrier had successfully grown traffic on the route, boosting average loads from the mid 40s per cent in 2011 to the high 60s per cent in 2012 and low 70s per cent in 2013.
However, after increasing annual demand to around 60,000 bi-directional passengers and reinforcing yields in 2013, the airline saw the dynamics of the market change in 2014 with demand falling and average O&D and segment fares falling 13.2 per cent and 17.0 per cent versus the previous year, respectively.
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