Hong Kong Airlines has clocked up a remarkable turnaround in punctuality in the last two years, though this may have escaped the notice of their passengers, who now spend more time in the air.
A British company that analyses travel data said on Friday that Hong Kong"™s No 3 airline had soared to the top of global punctuality rankings with 94.8 per cent of flights in October on time "“ classed as touching down within 15 minutes of the scheduled arrival.
But a review of the same data by the Post showed the airline had made flight times for a number of destinations longer "“ at around the same time as the improvements with punctuality began.
Flights to Tokyo Narita used to take 4 hours 10 minutes until March this year, when they started to take 4 hours and 40 minutes instead. For Taipei, half of the flights were expected to take 1 hour and 50 minutes, but many were now 10 to 15 minutes longer.
An extra five to 15 minutes was added to the bulk of the flights to Bangkok, previously expected to take 2 hours and 55 minutes, though there were also flights on this route that got shorter by about 20 minutes.
Hong Kong Airlines issued a robust defence of its practice, saying flight punctuality was an issue affecting the business and its image, therefore improvements were required…
