The Cathay Pacific Group has announced plans to rebrand regional carrier Dragonair as Cathay Dragon, aimed at helping the group capture more traffic growth from the mainland China market.
The rebranding will see Cathay Dragon adopt a new livery, which while still retaining its distinctive red, features a Cathay-style brushwing logo. The livery will first appear on a Cathay Dragon Airbus A330-300 in April, and will be progressively rolled out across the rest of the fleet.
Cathay Pacific Group
Closely aligning the two brands will “capitalise” on Cathay’s “international brand recognition” while leveraging on the regional subsidiary’s connectivity into Mainland China, says the group.
“Hong Kong is an international aviation hub and also the gateway to China, and it helps to position Cathay Pacific and Cathay Dragon uniquely to capture the explosive traffic growth. Tourism in China is growing quite significantly fast with the volume tripled from 31 million to 109 million over last decade,” says Cathay Dragon’s chief executive Algernon Yau.
Cathay chief executive Ivan Chu says the rebranding will also provide passengers a more seamless brand experience, making it “more apparent” for those flying through the two carriers’ networks that they are flying within the Cathay family.
Cathay Pacific and Cathay Dragon will remain as two separate airlines, operating under their own licences. Last year, the carriers together carried 34 million passengers.
FlightMaps Analytics shows that Cathay Dragon serves 20 points across mainland China. It also has services to Japan, Korea, India and destinations in Southeast Asia. It currently operates 42 Airbus jets comprising 19 A330s, 15 A320s and eight A321s.
Source: FlightGlobal.com
