[AndrewinHK]

Hong Kong (HKG) – Taipei (TPE) has taken over the top place on the list of the busiest international airline routes for the month of August, replacing the Cairo (CAI) – Jeddah (JED) route, which moves down to 2nd place. The HKG-TPE route had 426,170 seats.

[cwoodward]

The faster than expected recovery of Hong Kong’s airlines has no doubt been assisted by the even faster recovery of Hong Kong’s population according to government figures up by 2.1% (174,000) since the start of the year and now back to 2019 pre pandemic levels.

Of this 174,000 most it seems were long time residents from across the world and expats returning to Hong Kong or making their home here for the first time.
Possibly pointing to the success of the Hong Kong Government’s efforts to encourage those qualified to make a permanent home here although it may be too soon for this to have had any significant effect.

[AMcWhirter]

Some readers may wonder why some busy international routes within Europe do not feature in OAG’s listings.

Let’s face it routes like LON-AMS or LON-DUB must be considered worthy of appearing in OAG’s Top Ten.

I suspect it’s because, in the case of London, OAG shows only those flights departing Heathrow.

This distorts the figures because ever since liberalisation airlines have switched services to London airports other than Heathrow.

In fact there are now fewer travellers flying Heathrow-Amsterdam than decades ago when there was air service only from Heathrow and Gatwick.

(Also when I first started flying London-Amsterdam in the ’70s you would find KLM deploying DC-8/63s to meet demand at peak times and doubtless BEA would have used wide-bodied TriStars)

In September BA operates up to five flights daily from London City (LCY) and eight from Heathrow (LHR).

KLM is the reverse. It has more flights from LCY (nine) than from LHR (eight).

When flights out of Luton, Stansted and Gatwick are included there are many London-Amsterdam services.

If Eurostar didn’t exist the number of air travellers would be greater still.

And it’s a similar scenario regarding London-Dublin.

https://www.oag.com/busiest-routes-right-now

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AndrewinHK

[AndrewinHK]

Cwoodward the population data seems a bit inconclusive, the population increased, but was mostly buoyed by a 64% increase in people who do not live in Hong Kong full time, one hopes they might end up living here, and the recent rental price data suggests flows of Mainlanders are increasing, I suspect many driven by the economic malaise at home, and the high levels of youth unemployment, data for which will now no longer be published, whilst it is ‘optimised’, obfuscation at its finest. Meanwhile HK immigration statistics for 2023 show resident departures outnumbered arrivals by 291,000 until mid August which might explain why many of the Michelin starred restaurants are empty, not that I am complaining, as you can just walk in to many of the better restaurants. Back to the OAG data, number of seats doesn’t necessarily translate into seats sold, or give any indication to the yield, so isn’t always indicative of economic health, and yes Alex I concur, the way OAG collate the data is odd/misleading.

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AMcWhirter

[cwoodward]

I don’t altogether agree with your surmation Andrew. There is a decent report on the Government website that outlines in some detail the facts. The low from the mainland can be expected to have increased this year given that there was almost none for the last several years given government restrictions.The ‘high levels’ of youth unemployment that you mention are a comparison to where please – not the UK surely?
I have been very fortunate to visit a good number of what you broadly describe as ‘better’ restaurants over the past few weeks including the Mandarin Grill,Lobster bar at the Island Shang, Sabatini all were full at about 8.00 pm on various weekday evenings We tried to book at our two favourite places Aaharn and The Chinnary for a Thursday evening over a week in advance neither was available. Certainly some restaurants are struggling but that has always been the case in fast paced HK where places that are not on top of their game are quickly replaced.
A quick look at long-haul airline loading both in and out of HK shows that there is high occupancy with many major airlines placing large aircraft on the route Most certainly Hong Kong is not back to pre pandemic levels nor of course is China but as already shown the naysayers who predicted the demise of Hong Kong, its airlines,hotels and tourist industry and the dwindling of its population have been proved to be somewhat premature (actually wrong on all counts)

[AndrewinHK]

Hi cwoodward, youth unemployment in China is quite a problem, it is significantly higher than in the UK, and it is higher than even Spain and Greece, the latest data showed it rising to 21.3% in urban areas, and the data will now no longer be published. I know the chef at Amber, and a chef at MO in Shenzhen, from discussions with them, Shenzhen is struggling, HK is ok, but spending is down, especially on alcohol, with many choosing to B.O.B, and the restaurants then struggling to pass on the corkage fees. If the Peak is anything to go by, tourism from the mainland is returning with abandon, and walking my dogs on an evening is no longer a tranquil stroll, hoards at sunset, particularly at the weekend.

[FDOS]

“Hong Kong (HKG) – Taipei (TPE) has taken over the top place on the list of the busiest international airline routes for the month of August, replacing the Cairo (CAI) – Jeddah (JED) route, which moves down to 2nd place. The HKG-TPE route had 426,170 seats.”

Shouldn’t that be the international route with the most capacity?

One can argue that the route with the most actual pax is the busiest. I suppose there might be an alternative propsition that the route with the most flights is the busiest, however I don’t find that compelling.

[cwoodward]

I understood that we were discussing Hong Kong and my post was re HK – I know nothing of unemployment rates in China

[cwoodward]

It seems to me that the route with the most pax carried must be deemed the busiest given the variance in aircraft and pax carried – but that looks not to be the the way the industry prefers to express it.
The number of flights being understandably of more interest to the aviation industry.

[AMcWhirter]

I cannot guaranteed the accuracy but Schipholairportguide.com lists over 250 one-way flights between the London airports and Schiphol.

I believe the OAG figures refer solely to LHR-AMS but as I noted above there are now *more* flights (than there are from LHR) out of the other London airports: LTN, STN, LCY, LGW and SEN.

(Yes in the days before liberalisation LHR-AMS was far and way the main route. But since the advent of LCCs there are now more flights and travellers taking flights from London’s other airports)

In fact the flight numbers would probably be higher were it not for the Schiphol flight cap and surface competition from Eurostar.

HKG-TPE flights operate to and from a single airport at each end and, of course, face no surface competition.

Therefore London-Amsterdam deserves a place in OAG’s top 10.

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AndrewinHK, FDOS

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