Airline Industry of Hong Kong
...he low profit routes to smaller cities and focus on longer routes between larger markets. Deregulation increased competition among the major carriers and the emergence of low-cost carriers, which led to heavy discounting and price wars. Most parts of East Asia, covering a population of 2 billion, can be reached within 5 hours of flight time from Hong Kong. In particular, Hong Kong serves as the gateway to the Chinese mainland, with over 40 cities being linked to Hong Kong by scheduled and non-scheduled services. Hong Kong has the shortest total distance to all other urban centres in East Asia, making it an ideal location as a regional hub. Hong Kong has one of the world's leading international airports, handling 36.3 million passengers in 2004. According to Airports Council International, Hong Kong ranked fifth in international passengers respectively in 2004. As at February 2005, Hong Kong had signed air services agreements with 54 aviation partners.Hong Kong is served by a large number of airlines. In the year 2003/2004, 75 scheduled and 17 non-scheduled passenger airlines served Hong Kong with passenger and cargo traffic. A smaller number of airlines transported cargo only, such as Air Hong Kong, Federal Express and UPS. Each week ...