American Airlines customers will have easier access to four new Southeast Asian destinations and increased frequencies to three more thanks to a codeshare agreement with Cathay Dragon.
American will place its code on select Cathay Dragon flights from Hong Kong International Airport to the seven cities from July 11.
The four new destinations are Dhaka, Bangladesh (DAC); Chiang Mai, Thailand (CNX); Da Nang, Vietnam (DAD) and Phuket, Thailand (HKT).
The existing markets served by American’s other Asian partners and that will see increased frequencies are Penang, Malaysia (PEN); Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia (KUL); and Hanoi, Vietnam (HAN).
READ: Tom’s excellent flight with Cathay Pacific.
Cathay Dragon is a wholly owned subsidiary of American OneWorld partner Cathay Pacific and serves 53 destinations across the Asia-Pacific region, including 23 destinations in mainland China.
“The codeshare relationship with Cathay Dragon will further strengthen American’s existing partnership with the Cathay Pacific group in the years to come,” American said in its announcement.
American has served Hong Kong since 2013 and currently operates daily, year-round service from Dallas-Fort Worth and Los Angeles.
The deal comes as Cathay and another oneworld partner, Qantas, are lobbying Australia’s International Air Services Commission to overturn a decision to extend their codeshare arrangement
The IASC found that the public benefits of the proposal were “substantially outweighed” by the public detriment.
The Hong Kong carrier and Qantas wanted to update an August 2018 agreement that allowed Qantas to add its code on 15 one-way routes beyond Hong Kong operated by Cathay or Cathay Dragon and Cathay to add its code on 25 one-way routes on Qantas’s domestic network.
The variation added another 19 one-way routes beyond Hong Kong on the Cathay/Cathay Dragon side and 32 one-way Australian domestic routes operated by Qantas.
The bid had been opposed by Virgin Australia, which flies to Hong Kong from Melbourne and Sydney and raised concerns at Australia’s competition watchdog.
