Hong Kong has many linkages to India. The traditional jaunt of the Sindhis, there are not many direct options to fly direct between these two countries. If you had to fly from Delhi to Hong Kong, your options are limited to Air India, Jet Airways or Cathay Pacific. This morning, very quietly, however, SpiceJet has jumped on this route. SpiceJet has opened ticketing between Delhi and Hong Kong, and their Hong Kong operations would start later this year.
SpiceJet is set to become the first Indian no-frills carrier to fly non-stop to Hong Kong from Delhi (Unless the blue airline beats them to it). They start flying to Hong Kong from November 22, 2018, operating a daily flight on this route. Bookings are now open on their website spicejet.com as well as popular OTAs such as MakeMyTrip, AkbarTravels etc. The schedule is as follow:
SG31 DEL2245 – 0640+1HKG B738 D
SG32 HKG0740 – 1050DEL B738 D
I looked up fares for a round trip later in the year and found the tickets to be priced at INR 20,799 – almost 30% cheaper than what you’d pay for full-service flights. Their website currently states they will be operating the Boeing 737-800s on this route but I strongly feel that they’ll be deploying their new Boeing 737 MAX aircraft, which will be put into service soon. [UPDATE: Spicejet has confirmed that they’ll be flying the Boeing 737 MAXs on this route.]
However, with a single frequency, for now, SG won’t be able to serve the business travel market very well. You hop on a flight at night in Delhi, arrive in the morning, finish your work during the day, and still have to wait the night to catch a flight back early next morning. This negates the savings made by flying no-frills. If they could mount operations from another city into HKG as well, they’d be able to rotate planes and they should be able to offer a morning-evening out of Hong Kong.
Bottomline
SpiceJet has been quietly growing both domestically and internationally for some time now. With the launch of their Hong Kong flights, SpiceJet may manage to grab a sizable market share on this lucrative route before the rest of the no-frills player join the party.
I’m keen to hear your thoughts on flying SpiceJet to Hong Kong. What do you expect from SG on their international operations?
I have checked the spicejet site for hong kong flights, but they have not mentioned anything about baggage.How we know how much weight they are allowing for these flights.
Does the 737-800s have the Range for this? Would it need a payload penalty for this flight?
@Ranga we have stated that the plane flown will be the 737 MAX
They used to fly to Guangzhou back in 2013, covering almost same nautical mile. But yes it used to be bit tight (ON FUEL) on the way back CAN-DEL in winters due to strong jet streams and fog in DEL.
IT USED TO BE A FULL FLIGHT