Hong Kong Airlines was forced to cancel 70 arriving and departing flights this week due to transport worker strikes in Hong Kong.

Hong Kong Airlines has revealed strong performance across its home-delivery and pre-order businesses in partnership with inflight concessionaire 3Sixty.

As reported, the airline was forced to cancel more than 70 arriving and departing flights on Monday (5 August) due to transport worker strikes in Hong Kong. This was another issue for the city to contend with, alongside consecutive weeks of pro-democracy protests against the Government’s (now suspended) extradition bill.

Hong Kong Airlines declined to comment on the impact of the protests on flight bookings and inflight duty free sales when contacted by TRBusiness.

Qin Peng, Service Delivery Department, Deputy General Manager, Inflight Products and Operations, Hong Kong Airlines (below left) however, appeared upbeat when discussing the carrier’s inflight retail business. He told TRBusiness: “Our home-delivery and online business is performing well and we keep increasing it.

“We have introduced more products in recent months and want to keep doing this as competition intensifies from airports, downtown shops and online.

PRODUCT ADDITIONS

“It is not just about adding more products, but ensuring we offer interesting items as well.”

Meanwhile, the airline, which has enhanced its pre-order service including the website, is satisfied with the performance of its retail operations. “The business is doing fine and keeps increasing. We have inflight duty free sales, pre-order, home-delivery and are even exploring ground shop opportunities.”

The current state and future prospects of the inflight retail industry has been called into question with several airlines announcing withdrawals of their onboard retail programmes, but Peng is confident the sector will continue to thrive. “We will continue exploring new solutions for inflight sales and believe inflight retail will keep growing in Asia Pacific. All we can do is look to find better solutions and technology to improve the customer experience. I am confident the sector will keep growing.”