Airline Revenue Economics

90 years in Hong Kong for British Airways

2026-03-24 · 08:02 UTC ·Oliver Ranson ·12 min read

Brief

British Airways’ 90th anniversary in Hong Kong is used here as a lens on how one of the airline’s historically important long-haul premium routes has changed. The route began on 24 March 1936, when an Imperial Airways de Havilland 86 reached Kai Tak with 16 mail bags and a single passenger after a multi-stop journey through Southeast Asia. In the modern era, BA at one point ran as many as three daily London-Hong Kong flights, largely on 747s, with aggregate premium capacity exceeding 150 Club World sleeper seats and 42 First suites. Before COVID, A380s and 777-300ERs sustained similarly heavy premium supply, but the route was formally reduced to single-daily on 17 July 2024. Today it is served by an A350-1000 with 56 Club Suites and no First cabin.

The author’s main analytical point is that capacity cuts do not necessarily signal weak economics; they may reflect a smaller but still high-yield market. He points to consistently scarce redemption inventory, including limited access even through BA’s Avios and Amex voucher mechanisms, as evidence that BA expects to sell premium seats for cash. A temporary 2025 revenue-management logic change from Point of Sale to Point of Commencement may have accidentally released award seats, reinforcing how tightly the route is normally controlled. The article also notes operational impacts from the closure of Russian airspace, stretching westbound flying time to roughly 14 hours, and suggests future onboard connectivity such as Starlink could change how airlines and corporate buyers think about flight timing and business-travel utility.

Why it matters

British Airways marked 90 years on the Hong Kong route on 24-Mar-2026; the first predecessor service arrived at Kai Tak on 24-Mar-1936 using a 10-seat de Havilland 86 operated by Imperial Airways, reportedly carrying 16 mail bags and one passenger.

Key details

  • BA’s London-Hong Kong service has structurally down-gauged over time: it once operated up to three daily flights with Boeing 747s and more than 150 Club World seats plus 42 First suites across the schedule, but was cut to single-daily on 17-Jul-2024, initially on a Boeing 787-9 with 42 Club World seats and 8 First seats, and now on an Airbus A350-1000 with 56 Club Suites and no First Class.
  • The author argues Hong Kong remains a strong-yield route despite reduced capacity, citing BA’s tight award-seat controls: a Nov-2024 return redemption booked via BA’s On Business program cost 29,000 OB points plus £35.10 one-way from Hong Kong, aided by local rules that eliminate fuel surcharges on ex-Hong Kong tickets.
  • A summer 2025 BA revenue-management systems change from Point of Sale to Point of Commencement appears to have briefly opened unusual Avios availability on Hong Kong; the author believes seats were mistakenly released and then closed again within days, suggesting the route is normally protected for high-yield cash sales.
  • Operational conditions have also shifted with geopolitics: the westbound Hong Kong-Heathrow leg now takes about 14 hours because BA cannot overfly Russia, routing instead via Azerbaijan near Mt Bazarduzu, while Heathrow departures remain timed in the evening to suit business travelers arriving in Hong Kong late afternoon or evening.
  • The piece frames Hong Kong’s reduced nonstop demand as a consequence of post-1997 business-traffic decline and competition from Gulf carriers, while noting Cathay Pacific still operates four or five daily London flights and offers a broader schedule than BA.
Source evidence

title: 90 years in Hong Kong for British Airways
author: Oliver Ranson
contenttype: article
publication: Airline Revenue Economics
published: 2026-03-24T08:02:16+00:00
sourceurl: https://revman.substack.com/p/90-years-in-hong-kong-for-british

word_count: 2593

Sound the trumpets! Bang the gong! Ninety years! In Hong Kong!! Today British Airways celebrates 90 years serving the Hong Kong route. They started out with a bi-plane to Kai Tak. Today they have an Airbus A350-1000 to Chep Lak Kok. Happy 90 th birthday BA in Hong Kong! On 24-Mar-1936 an Imperial Airways 10-seater de Havilland 86 bi-plane arrived at Kai Tak Airport. Using today’s airport code’s, it’s route was something close to PEN-SGN-DAD-HKG. Presumably at some point the plane came from London. Imperial Airways was one of the forerunners of the airline we know today as British Airways (BA). An 80 th anniversary article in the South China Morning Post , Hong Kong’s local daily, tells us that there were 16 mail bags and one passenger on board the first flight. Advertisement: I cannot tell a detailed history of BA in Hong Kong. Standard industry data sources only go back so far. When the route celebrated it’s 80 th birthday ten years ago, BA widely publicised a launch fare of £175 (£16,040 in 2024 according to Measuring Worth, an online tool that calculates the current value of old money). My “Mapping the Airways” book of BA route maps by Paul Jarvis shows multis-stop routes that took a week or more. Things are much easier for me today. These days I whizz across Europe and Asia on a data-collecting Airbus A350 twin-aisle. Hong Kong is a city I enjoy visiting and know a bit about. It has a fascinating history. And I have personally been flying there for more than 25 years. A big chunk of BA’s operating history. So in today’s article, in honour of the occasion, I will be ruminating on Hong Kong’s place in the travel world past and present. I will tell my story flying BA to and from Hong Kong. The highs and, occasionally, the lows. Like with BA itself, my journey to and from Hong Kong has changed. It started with Economy and has gone through First and Business too. Occasionally a double-decker Airbus A380 was involved. A pint-sized Boeing 787-8 and Airbus A330 were involved too. For this homage to Asia’s World City, I hope readers will forgive me a little indulgence. The history of BA’s product & service to Hong Kong during my flying career During my business travel career BA has operated up to three daily flights between London and Hong Kong. I think it has been at least 15 years since they had triple-daily. Sadly my data sources do not go back that far – readers are welcome to correct me… When I first started studying the route there were Boeing 747 double-deckers operating almost every flight. Boeing 777s appeared every now and then. The jumbos were not BA’s most premium heavy. A config with 38 Club World sleeper seats operated some of the flights. The config with 70 Club sleepers was harder to find – these tended to shuttle back and forth on BA’s trans-Atlantic routes. When BA rolled out their remodelled Club World in around 2007-8, the config switched to 52 Club sleepers. Triple-daily would have meant more than 150 Club World sleeper seats and 42 First suites. A lot of premium capacity. During this time I was still learning about the industry. I learned a lot of lore from the travellers on FlyerTalk. Stories of shiny Gold card holders looking forward to middle seats when booking weeks or months ahead because that was all that was left. Tales of BA overbooking by 100 passengers or more for the Friday night flights back to London and still going out with empty seats. Rumours of the last-minute full-fare First Class bookers needing two front-cabin seats to Hong Kong tonight and, despite flights being full, somehow getting them. Posts on Internet bulletin boards like FlyerTalk should be taken with a pinch of salt. But they also contain more than a few grains of truth. Twenty years ago, BA flights to and from Hong Kong really probably were like this. In the years before COVID Airbus A380 super-jumbos and Boeing 777-300ERs ploughed the route. These two aircraft combined probably matched or close to matched the old 747 jumbo jet services, even at triple-daily, for premium capacity. I am not quite sure when the service down-gauged from triple- to double-daily, but I can give a precise date for the change to single-daily – 17-Jul-2024. I wrote about it here on Airline Revenue Economics . The route was down-gauged to a Boeing 787-9 with only 42 Club World seats and a mere eight in First. There are slightly more Club Suites (56) on today’s Airbus A350 but no First Class at all. Times change. With the rise of middle eastern aviation and the inevitable decline in business traffic post-handover from 1997, Hong Kong does not need as much capacity direct from London as it used to. Cathay have the best choice of times with four or five flights a day. But although capacity has changed a great deal, one thing that has not changed is the flight time. And these are timed for business travellers. Flights leave Heathrow in the evening or the night, arriving in Hong Kong in the afternoon or evening local time. I like the earlier flight. After arriving I pick up the bag and take the Airport Express into town. Then I am exiting Tsim Sha Tsui station (lift at entrance L4) just in time for hotel check-in and a trip to the Orient Exchange in the Hankow Centre over the road to buy my Hong Kong Dollars. The flight back to Heathrow is a grueller. With no chance of over-flying Russia at the moment it takes 14 hours via what I call “The Corner” at Mt Bazarduzu in Azerbaijan. It leaves Hong Kong late and heads through the darkness. Passengers can eat, sleep and watch a movie, and it will still be dark outside. Supposedly, business travellers like that flight because it arrives into Heathrow at zero-dark-hundred hours. They can impress the boss by appearing early at their desk. As BA begins rolls out Starlink wi-fi I wonder what the future of flight times like this will be. As far as corporate travel buyers are concerned, is a day of working on a flight better than an OK night’s sleep and then being bleary-eyed all day at the office? Time will tell. My memorable redemption experiences to and from Hong Kong My flights to Hong Kong on Cathay Pacific are stories for another day. My trip on Alitalia – an Airbus A330, in Economy, in my late teens, in 2000 – is a distant memory. Two of my BA trips count among my greatest points redemptions ever. With only one flight a day it is not easy to find redemption seats. In fact, my own experience suggests that BA make it deliberately harder to secure redemption seats on this route than others. When traditionally tough points routes like California, South America and even South Africa have special points seats available using the UK’s Amex voucher to open them up, Hong Kong does not. So back to my two awesome redemptions… As an organisation buying business travel, the Limited company that I control is a member of BA’s On Business (OB) loyalty programme for small scale enterprises. I can double-dip on points, earning both Avios and OB points. OB points are much more powerful than Avios – they book into revenue fare classes. My November 2024 holiday to Hong Kong was booked with these. The return was especially good value, at only 29k OB points plus £35.10. Not bad for 6,000 miles in a flying bed. There is no fuel surcharge ex-Hong Kong due to local regulatory requirements. So I booked two one-ways and avoided BA’s YQ, which I would not have done had I booked a return ex-Heathrow. The second awesome redemption I believe came from a BA mistake. In summer 2025 BA switched their Revenue Management logic around. They moved from Point of Sale to Point of Commencement . Reports on FlyerTalk suggested that Avios availability was almost completely dry, even using the Amex voucher which is supposed to open up special seats in Club World and Club Europe business class cabins. So I took a look at Hong Kong. Availability there was wide open, so I grabbed what I needed and enjoyed my November 2025 holiday. A few days later everything was closed again. I told this story to some BA RM chaps I met a T2RL Engage in London last year, an industry shindig. They claimed that the logic change did not impact Avios availability with the Amex voucher. But they also said I was “lucky” to get redemption seats to Hong Kong. I believe that it was BA’s mistake and I was indeed lucky. My best guess is that when the system logic changed over, seats that were meant to be kept open were closed. Meanwhile seats that were meant to be kept closed were opened. Thanks BA! Mistake aside, the difficulty of finding redemption seats on Hong Kong shows something about the route’s performance. Loyalty is highly profitable for BA’s owner IAG. So profitable that they make efforts to reward Avios collectors with the Amex voucher that opens Club seats and guaranteed redemptions on every flight. No or few Club seats opened with the Avios voucher shows that BA expects to sell plenty of seats at a good yield on Hong Kong. Good enough not to earn the profits from loyalty in that market. My memorable flying experiences Of my five BA flights from London to Hong Kong, four have left in the early evening – 5.40pm, 5.55pm, 6.25pm and 6.40pm. This time makes for a perfect evening meal service. On an A380 operated flight in 2019 I was taking my Mum to Hong Kong on Avios and Amex voucher – seats were not so hard to find with large planes on the route. This flight was truly remarkable. Mum and I were having dinner together and I was in the buddy seat. Due to atmospheric refraction and fortunate timing we watched the Sun set three times and rise twice before twilight finally arrived. I count that a once-in-a-lifetime experience. Another flight, this time on the 777, also arrived in Hong Kong just in time for breakfast, UK time. I woke up after a great sleep as the Captain came on to let us know that we were only 40 minutes out. One of the crew saw me waking and came over to ask if I needed anything. “Is there still time for breakfast”, I asked. “There’s always time for breakfast” said the crewman, swiftly followed by delivery of a full English, toast and pastry selection. He must have had it ready and waiting for me! Great service like this helps keep passengers buying tickets, boosting aggregate demand and so BA’s revenue. Not all my flights have left early evening. When BA operated double-daily I took a flight leaving Heathrow at 8.55pm. This arrived into Hong Kong much later. I took it because the better timed flight did not have First Class. Thanks to extensive business travel I had a Gold Guest List “Joker” priority reward voucher, which magically opens seats. It arrived early enough to see the city in daylight from the plane, but late enough that by the time I left the airport it was dark. Plus by the time I reached Kowloon the Orient Exchange was closed. I would not fly at that time again if I had the choice, even in First. Flight catering to Hong Kong The dinner and breakfast service out of Heathrow is quite standard. It has been well reported elsewhere. In First you get something like this (actually pictured on a Philadelphia flight, but with the same menu as I had on Hong Kong). The Club meal is also good. Dinner looks like this: Breakfast looks like this: This late flight had a particularly unusual second meal service. Rather than breakfast, it was a duck roll and a chicken burger. I had both and they were delicious! When it comes to catering on the way back to London, the starters are normally better than the main courses ex-Hong Kong. Here are some of the delicious starters in First and Club – duck with hoisin sauce for First and tuna tataki for Club: And here are the corresponding main courses that are “quite good” rather than great – Hainan chicken for First and steak for Club. BA generally excels in it’s pudds and this is just as much the case on Hong Kong as elsewhere. One of the best bits about flying into Hong Kong on any airline, including BA, is the views For those who have not flown the route, flying into Hong Kong is visually spectacular. You might catch a glimpse of historic Macau (top left in the image below). Depending on which side of the plane you are on there are spectacular views of either the New Territories (bottom right) and Shenzhen, or Hong Kong island and the Kowloon peninsula (bottom left). Or both if you are lucky. The way back from Hong Kong overnight also has interesting views. The airport is lit up. Look at Hong Kong island carefully and you can see the paths up and down Victoria Peak, including Old Peak Road and the way down from the pavilion to HKU. Flying over China is also interesting. Every Chinese city seems to have at least one bright red light. These are static – they do not flash. The larger the city the more there are of them. What these are I have no idea – answers on a post-card… I normally get to sleep somewhere a bit after Chengdu. But flying BA to and from Hong Kong has not always been perfect There was only one time when I was actually annoyed with BA on the Hong Kong route. On my 2023 flight they did not deliver my bag in both directions . I would not have minded if they had told me on the plane, or put up a sign at the carousel like the BA team at Tokyo Haneda do. I had to stand at the carousel for 45 minutes while everybody else picked up their bags. If they had told me straight off I could have simply obtained the Property Irregularity Report online and gone into town. The delivery of the late bag was fine. The communication was not. That is modern aviation in a nutshell. One other time things went wrong I was not annoyed with BA because these things happen and the service recovery was great. My flight was delayed only a few hours away from departure due to lack of a part. We all needed to wait until the replacement part came from London on the next BA flight. BA did a good job of looking after us – you can read about it here . A historical perspective on why Hong Kong became an important BA market To truly understand why Hong Kong became such an important centre of trade and finance warranting hundreds of First, Business and Premium Economy Class seats a day to and from London, a spot of history is required. Last year I read Patrick Conner’s fascinating book “The Hongs of Canton”. A Hong, also known as a factory, was essentially a national trading post. There were thirteen of them and the first was established around about the 1680s. Read more