Innholdsfortegnelse for July - August 2024 i Business Traveller Asia-Pacific Edition

GARUDA INDONESIA AND SINGAPORE AIRLINES (SIA) are deepening their commercial partnership, with the aim of offering reciprocal benefits for their frequent-flyer programme members, and to explore revenue sharing arrangements for flights between Indonesia and Singapore. When launched, the frequent-flyer partnership will allow GarudaMiles and KrisFlyer members to earn and redeem miles on codeshare flights operated by both airlines. Meanwhile, the revenue sharing agreement is designed to support joint capacity growth, marking a significant step in the plans for a proposed commercial joint venture arrangement that covers Garuda Indonesia and Singapore Airlines flights between Singapore and Indonesia. The expanded arrangements remain subject to regulatory approvals. Singapore Airlines and Garuda Indonesia have an existing codeshare partnership that has been boosted in recent months. Currently, Garuda Indonesia codeshares on Singapore Airlines flights between…

MANDARIN ORIENTAL HAS OPENED its much anticipated second London hotel on Hanover Square, across from the new Elizabeth Line entrance to Bond Street station. The 50-room Mandarin Oriental Mayfair features the first UK restaurant by Korean-born chef Akira Back, as well as Back's signature ABar Lounge and ABar rooftop bar concepts. Below ground, there is a spa with a 25m swimming pool, fitness centre, sauna, vitality pools, experience showers and steam rooms. The hotel joins the existing Mandarin Oriental Hyde Park, which unveiled extensive refurbishment works in 2019. A third London property is set to open in 2028 within the 2.2 hectare mixed-use Bankside Yards development, a project which is designed to reconnect the space between the Tate Modern and Blackfriars train station.…

HYATT HAS ANNOUNCED the opening of Caption by Hyatt Namba Osaka, “a community-minded hotel in the heart of Osaka”. The 167-room property features self-activated touchpoints, various social spaces and a trendy design aesthetic, the group said. The rooms range from 19-30sqm. Other facilities include a 24-hour fitness centre and coin laundry, as well as a coffee shop and eatery. Caption by Hyatt Namba Osaka will be a short walk from the world-famous canal-side entertainment district Dotonbori and the near- 600m-long Kuromon Market, which dates back to the Edo era (1603–1868). In June 2022, the Caption by Hyatt brand made its global debut with Caption by Hyatt Beale Street Memphis in the US. Most recently, Caption by Hyatt Zhongshan Park Shanghai opened its doors as the brand's first introduction to the…

SOUTH KOREA'S AIR PREMIA has launched a new nonstop service from its Seoul base to San Francisco. The hybrid carrier is now flying the route four times a week with its two-class Boeing 787-9 Dreamliner aircraft. The flights depart Seoul every Wednesday, Friday, Sunday and Monday at 1730, arriving in San Francisco at 1230 on the same day. The return flights leave SFO at 1500, arriving back at Incheon at 1950 the following day. These typically feature a premium economy product with 56 seats and a 43in seat pitch in a 2-3-2 configuration, and approximately 280 economy class seats in a 3-3-3 layout with 30-32in pitch. Air Premia calls itself the first and only HSC (hybrid service carrier) in South Korea, providing, it says, high-quality service at a reasonable cost.…

ONEWORLD HAS CONFIRMED that Fiji Airways is to become a full member of the alliance. The carrier joined as a Oneworld connect partner in late 2018, and will transition to full member status within the next 12 months. Work will commence immediately to transition Fiji Airways to full membership, with the carrier's subsidiary Fiji Link also becoming a Oneworld affiliate airline. Fiji Airways is based at Nadi International Airport, and serves 26 destinations in 15 countries and territories, including Oneworld hubs at Sydney, Hong Kong, Los Angeles and Tokyo. Oneworld is celebrating its 25th anniversary this year (see page 50) and Fiji Airways will become the alliance's 15th full member. Oman Air will soon become a member, having announced its intentions in 2022.…

Macau is a city whose modern fortunes are founded on a single industry. Unsurprisingly, and much like the city with which it has regularly swapped the title of most lucrative global gambling hub, Las Vegas, it has been trying to diversify for a while. Macau is the only place in China where casinos are allowed, a status it has held since the 1850s, when gambling was legalised in what was then a Portuguese colony. The city's turbo-charged modern era really began, though, when China regained sovereignty in 1999 and quickly liberalised the city's gambling regime, moving away from the previous monopoly granted to STDM, now SJM, owned by late Hong Kong mogul Stanley Ho, and granting licences to six companies. Several of them have their roots in Vegas, and under…

BACKGROUND Launched in 1987, Fairfield by Marriott is positioned as an “upper midscale” select service brand. It is Marriott's second-largest brand with about 1,290 hotels (largely centred in the US) and 450+ properties in the pipeline. The brand made its European debut in March 2024, with the launch of Fairfield by Marriott Copenhagen Nordhavn. The hotel is part of a dual-branded development, with longstay Residence Inn under the same roof. WHERE IS IT? In the city's waterfront Nordhavn (North Harbour) district, a new sustainable urban development in the city's Århusgadekvarter neighbourhood. The hotel is just under eight minutes’ walk from the Nordhavn metro station, with the M4 line connecting to Copenhagen's city centre in just 15 minutes. WHAT'S IT LIKE? The Fairfield hotel has been designed by OCCA Design Studio…

THE UK'S DEPARTMENT FOR TRANSPORT has temporarily reintroduced restrictions limiting air passengers to carrying liquids measuring no more than 100ml in their hand luggage. The gradual rollout of next generation 3D scanners had led to several UK airports including London City, Aberdeen, Newcastle, Leeds Bradford, Southend and Teesside easing restrictions, meaning customers could carry containers holding up to two litres in liquids. But the DfT said that the 100ml limit had been reintroduced (a move which continued to be the case as we went to press) at the six airports listed above to “enable further improvements to be made to the new checkpoint systems”. Birmingham Airport also recently completed the installation of new scanning equipment, but the 100ml limit had remained in place, as the airport said (ahead of the…

AIR INDIA HAS CONFIRMED plans to launch flights between London's Gatwick Airport and Bengaluru from August 18 this year. The service will operate five-times-weekly, with flight AI177 departing Bengaluru on Mondays, Wednesdays, Thursdays, Fridays and Sundays at 1305, arriving into Gatwick at 1905. The return leg will leave London at 2035, landing back into Bengaluru at 1050 the following day. Bengaluru will be Air India's fifth destination from Gatwick, joining flights from Ahmedabad, Amritsar, Goa and Kochi, which launched last year. In total, the airline will offer 17 weekly flights at Gatwick from this summer, alongside 31 weekly services from Heathrow to Delhi and Mumbai, and six weekly flights from Birmingham to Amritsar and Delhi. See page 36 for our feature on Bengaluru.…

IHG HOTELS & RESORTS has announced a new local partnership to develop the first Voco hotel in China's Fujian province: Voco Xiamen SM city. Scheduled to open in the second half of 2025, the property will be part of the SM Xiamen commercial complex. Voco Xiamen SM city will feature more than 300 rooms and a wide range of amenities, including a full-service restaurant, a Chinese restaurant, versatile event spaces, an indoor heated swimming pool and a fitness centre. Founded in 2018, Voco now has 64 properties across 25 countries, and 80 hotels in the pipeline. Over the past four years, IHG has opened Voco hotels in Shanghai, Guangzhou, Shenzhen, Nanjing, Hangzhou, Chengdu and Lianyungang. Voco Xiamen SM city will cater to the growing demand for tourism and business travel…

DUBAI INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT has published its latest passenger numbers, recording its busiest quarter in history. The hub airport welcomed 23,052,060 passengers in Q1, up 8.3 per cent on the same period last year. India was the top destination for flights from Dubai International over the quarter, with 3.1 million customers, followed by Saudi Arabia (2 million) and the UK (1.5 million). In terms of cities, London was the top market with a total of 961,000 passengers heading to the UK capital during Q1, followed by Riyadh (795,000) and Jeddah (669,000). Last year Dubai International welcomed just under 87 million travellers, placing it second on the list of the world's busiest hubs behind Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International. This figure is expected to rise to 91 million this year.…

MARRIOTT INTERNATIONAL has announced the first three projects under a strategic cooperation agreement with Delonix Group, a China-based hospitality company. Anticipated to open in spring 2025, the first signed Tribute Portfolio hotels will mark the brand's debut in three destinations, and include the Grand New Century Hotel, Hangzhou Boao, a Tribute Portfolio Hotel; the Wonderland Resort, Hangzhou Jiande, a Tribute Portfolio Resort; and the Grand New Century Hotel, Chongqing, a Tribute Portfolio Hotel. The Chongqing property will have 210 guest rooms and suites and will be strategically located in the centre of Chongqing, near Chaotianmen Wharf. Wonderland Resort, Hangzhou Jiande will be in the Qililong area of the Fuchun River – Xinan River Scenic Area in Jiande, Hangzhou. The hotel will feature 203 guest rooms. Meanwhile, the Grand New Century…

SUSTAINABLE TRAVELLER EMIRATES PLANS TO REPURPOSE more than 50,000kg of waste material from 191 aircraft (110 Airbus A380s and 81 Boeing 777s) currently undergoing a cabin interior refresh. The materials will be used to produce thousands of children's backpacks and school bags, donated to community schools and organisations supporting early education across Africa and Asia. Emirates Engineering has recovered more than 5,000kg of scrap materials from economy class seats from the 22 A380s that have been completely retrofitted. Seat fabric, which has a 95 per cent wool and 5 per cent nylon composition, was deemed as ideal for upcycling “due to its durability and non-flammable nature”. Fabrics were then laundered, deep cleaned, leatherconditioned and thoroughly disinfected before being sewn into unique pieces, featuring new lining, functional zippers and adjustable straps.…

This year sees a raft of travel sector companies celebrating landmark anniversaries. To mark the occasion, we've rounded up some of the significant birthdays in 2024. Of course the big one is still to come – Business Traveller was founded in 1976 and will celebrate its 50th birthday in 2026 (as will, ahem, this writer…). BRITISH AIRWAYS - 50 Hang on a minute, I hear you say – didn't British Airways celebrate its centenary not so long ago? Well, kind of. The carrier traces its history back to August 25, 1919, when Aircraft Transport and Travel Limited launched the world's first daily international scheduled air service, between London and Paris. But the British Airways brand was established much later on March 31, 1974, following the merger of the British Overseas…

BACKGROUND Cathay Pacific serves the London Heathrow-Hong Kong route with both the Boeing 777-300ER and the newer Airbus A350. Both aircraft feature the Saffron Cirrus seat, which Cathay has had for over a decade. It's virtually the same experience, with minor upgrades, on the newer A350s. It's a comfortable product, with good storage, privacy and tech features, but over the years it has come to lag behind competitors slightly on the innovation front. That is all set to change though, with Cathay due to debut the brand-new Aria Suite on its new Boeing 777-9s later this year. There are five daily flights from LHR to Hong Kong (1220, 1700, 1820, 2010 and 2215). There are also four weekly flights from Manchester (rising to five in October). CHECK IN This review…

BACKGROUND Singaporean brand COMO Hotels and Resorts launched its first hotel in its home country in September 2023, which represents an integration of its numerous brands spanning hotels, lifestyle and wellness. Housed in the mixed-use 19-storey COMO Orchard building, the COMO Metropolitan hotel occupies 11 floors with 156 rooms and suites. The building is also home to a fashion retail space curated by Club 21, an urban wellness space by COMO Shambhala, and international dining outlets. WHAT'S IT LIKE? A design ethos of modern simplicity and a neutral colour palette creates a calm, relaxing interior. The hotel has a private driveway, with lifts to the first-floor lobby. Guests then have to take another set of lifts to the rooms and hotel facilities. Before you do this, however, make sure you…

UPFRONT TAIWAN'S STARLUX AIRLINES will start flying to Hong Kong this summer. From July 16, the carrier will initially operate two daily round-trips between its Taipei hub and Hong Kong. STARLUX will deploy the Airbus A350-900, on one of the daily flights, and the A330neo on the other. The airline's A350-900s come in a four-class configuration, with four in first class, 26 in 1-2-1 business class, 36 in premium economy class and 240 in economy class. STARLUX also flies its A350s to Los Angeles and San Francisco, as well as on select Tokyo frequencies. Meanwhile, the airline's A330-900neos feature two cabins, with 28 in 1-2-1 business class and 269 in economy class. STARLUX currently has five A350-900s in its fleet, plus five more on order alongside eight larger A350-1000s. The…

UPFRONT VIRGIN ATLANTIC PLANS TO RETURN to Canada for the first time in over a decade, with direct flights from London Heathrow to Toronto Pearson International Airport. The carrier briefly operated flights to Toronto in 2001, and more recently served Vancouver (though this route has not operated since 2014). The daily service will launch on March 30, 2025, with fares starting from £490 (US$620) per person. The route will be operated by a mix of aircraft including the A330-900neo – complete with Virgin's Retreat Suite. Virgin also plans to expand its codeshare partnership with Canadian carrier WestJet in October, with benefits for both airlines’ frequent flyers “expected to follow in 2025”.…

UPFRONT CHINA SOUTHERN AIRLINES will reconnect Western Australia with mainland China with the return of its Guangzhou-Perth service on November 28, 2024. The flights will operate on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Sundays, arriving in Perth at 2210 and departing at 2355 on the airline's Boeing 787-9 Dreamliner aircraft. China Southern Airlines’ 787-9s seat 28 passengers in lie-flat business class across a 1-2-1 configuration, as well as 28 in 2-3-2 premium economy and 220 in 3-3-3 economy class. “The Chinese visitor market is so valuable for tourism, business, education and exports,” said Perth Airport's chief commercial and aviation officer, Kate Holsgrove. “China already represents Western Australia's fourthbiggest market with 54,000 visitors in 2023 injecting AUD230 million [US$154 million] into the economy, and we know that nonstop services will have a positive impact…

UPFRONT FINNAIR has completed its €200-million cabin refresh across its long-haul fleet of Airbus A350 and A330 aircraft. The two-year investment programme saw the refurbishment of eight A330 and 17 A350 aircraft to include the carrier's new business class seat, the new premium economy cabin, plus a revamped economy class. The flag carrier launched its innovative new business class seat in collaboration with Collins Aerospace in early 2022, alongside the airline's first premium economy cabin. Business Traveller has twice reviewed Finnair's new business class seat – first on an A330 short-haul service between London and Helsinki, and subsequently on an A350 long-haul flight between Helsinki and Singapore (see the Tried & Tested section of our website). Meanwhile, Finnair is set to overhaul its short-haul Embraer fleet “in the coming months”,…

SINGAPORE AIRLINES (SIA) and Hong Kong's Cathay Pacific have signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) to collaborate on a broad range of sustainability initiatives. These collective efforts are aimed at advocating for the development and use of sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) in the Asia-Pacific region, a critical decarbonisation lever for the sector, and sharing best practices to boost sustainability performance. The agreement underscores both carriers’ commitment to achieving net-zero carbon emissions by 2050 and affirms their aspiration to help drive sustainability changes in the commercial aviation industry. Firstly, SIA and Cathay will jointly advocate for the greater use of SAF in the Asia-Pacific region. Initiatives in this area will include raising public awareness about SAF's critical role in decarbonising aviation, advocating for supportive policies in the region, and promoting the…

1 THE SEAWALL On a sunny day, and there are more of those than conventional wisdom would have it, there are few cities in the world as beautiful as Vancouver. Snow-capped mountains descend to urban forests that wrap around inlets flowing in from the Pacific Ocean. Given that this is a centre focused on the outdoors, it's no surprise that long strolls, jogs or bike rides along the seawall are a popular way to take in all that Vancouver has to offer. Top of the list is the 13,123-step portion – yes, someone counted – encircling Stanley Park, though the 28-kilometre trail knits the entire city together, weaving in and around False Creek and all the way out to the forested University of British Columbia. The waterfront section between the…

BACKGROUND Japan Airlines’ inaugural flight from Doha's Hamad International Airport to Tokyo's Haneda Airport took place in April this year. Run as a codeshare with fellow Oneworld member Qatar Airways, the new daily service was created to cater to the increased demand for business and leisure travel from Doha to East Asia, offering the region's passengers another excellent option to connect easily with the rest of Asia, while also enabling customers from Asia and beyond to continue their journeys to Africa and Europe. JAL is first Japanese airline to operate a nonstop service to and from the Middle East, and the flight has a two-seat configuration, with economy and business class seats available. FIRST IMPRESSIONS If you are flying from Qatar to Tokyo, the flight is at an ideal time…

BACKGROUND EAST Hong Kong opened in 2010, with a “lifestyle business” concept that aims to combine comfort with a sense of fun. It was the first of the Swire Hotels EAST collection, which also includes a property in Beijing and another in Miami. Swire is the parent company of Cathay Pacific. The hotel underwent a renovation in 2020-2021, adding a renewed focus on sustainability (bottled soap/filtered drinking water). Also new were a user-friendly design, a sense of homeliness and commissioned abstract art in the guest rooms. WHERE IS IT The hotel is located in Tai Koo Shing, in the east of Hong Kong Island. It's about a 25-minute cab ride to the Central CBD and popular Lan Kwai Fong/SoHo entertainment districts, or eight stops from Central on the fast and…