A brief look at this week’s hotel news
Cathay Pacific strengthens brand
THE Cathay Pacific Group is rebranding its wholly owned sister
airline, Dragonair, as Cathay Dragon. Cathay Pacific and Cathay
Dragon will remain two separate airlines, operating under their
own licences. “There will be no changes to the business structure;
Cathay Dragon will remain operating with the Dragonair prefix
and Iata code KA,” says country manager for Cathay Pacific
Southern Africa and Indian Ocean, Rakesh Raicar. The group
says merging the two brand names will capitalise on Cathay
Pacific’s international brand recognition and leverage on Cathay
Dragon’s unique connectivity into Mainland China. Since Dragonair
became a solely owned subsidiary of Cathay Pacific in 2006 it has
added 23 destinations to the group’s portfolio and the number of
passengers travelling across both carriers has grown five times to
more than seven million in 2015.
Fastjet appoints new GSA
FASTJET has appointed Aviareps as its general sales agent
in South Africa, effective February 1. “Aviareps is a globally
recognised GSA that has a credible reputation, in-depth industry
knowledge and established relationships with the travel trade
market in South Africa,” says Richard Bodin, cco of fastjet.
Aviareps will now manage all fastjet’s reservations, sales and
marketing functions for the South African travel trade and
corporate markets. Holiday Aviation, the airline’s previous GSA,
says the loss of the airline will not have an effect on its revenue
streams. “We did not provide a full service GSA solution for fastjet
as our role was confined mainly to ticket sales on its behalf. There
was a conflict of interest with one of our other airline clients,
which compromised the viability of an ongoing relationship with
fastjet,” says Matthew Simpson, sales and marketing manager of
Holiday Aviation.
