Hong Kong stopover on cheap flight

By ANNE BESTON and KATHERINE HOBY

An Asian airline is slashing the cost of flying to London because passengers have a four-hour stopover in Hong Kong.

Cathay Pacific, whose Hong Kong home-base was one of the first areas affected by Sars, is fighting a slump in bookings by offering cheap London airfares designed to make New Zealanders overlook the Hong Kong stopover that is part of the deal.

A return airfare flying Cathay Pacific to London will be $1599 from next week, $1000 less than normal.

"That's the best price in 10 years in New Zealand travel," said Flight Centre marketing manager Shane Palarto.

Special deals for business class were also being offered.

Other special deals were likely to follow, although cheap package deals to Hong Kong and Canada, also badly affected by the Sars outbreak, were not ready yet.

United Travel retail marketing manager Kate Cleaver said the Asian carriers were obviously the worst affected by the Sars scare. Other airlines such as Air New Zealand could choose to fly via Los Angeles.

Agents here had also heard of European hotels turning away group bookings from Hong Kong, saying they were full, she said.

Flights travelling through stopover destinations in South America, South Africa and the United States were heavily booked for May and June.

James Langton, president of the Travel Agents Association of New Zealand, said that as many as 12 conferences scheduled to be held in China, Hong Kong, or Singapore in May or June had been cancelled in the past 10 days.

Tourism New Zealand chief executive George Hickton said travel consumers were uncertain about going to Asia.

But New Zealand might benefit from convention business that would otherwise have gone to Asia.