Hong Kong’s Greater Bay Airlines has launched flights to Zhoushan, a mainland Chinese city known for its Buddhist pilgrimage site of Mount Putuo, adding a new route that will soon be followed by three others, even as it recently cut a flight to Haikou that began in late July.
The carrier debuted the route to the largest of a cluster of islands off the eastern China coast last week, not long after launching a new flight to Japan’s Yonago in late October. The airline has plans to add Tokushima on November 16, Huangshan on December 4 and Sendai on December 7.
The new routes will expand the network of Hong Kong’s smallest airline to 11 destinations by the end of this year, despite the suspension of a few others this year.
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It recently stopped offering flights to Haikou that started in July and earlier suspended flights to Singapore launched in April after just over a month. The carrier also axed its Ho Chi Minh City route in February after beginning the service last July.
Airline CEO Liza Ng Shiow-lan said last Friday that the new routes were part of the carrier’s ambition to cover routes less travelled across China, Japan and Southeast Asia.
She added the company was now also eyeing gateways to the famous Three Gorges on the Yangtze River, a major tourist attraction in central China known for cruise trips to the Three Gorges Dam, one of the largest in the world.
Mount Putuo in Zhoushan, Zhejiang province, is one of four mountains on the mainland sacred to Buddhists, attracting millions of visitors every year. A key attraction is Nanhai Guanyin, which at 33 metres (108 feet) is the tallest outdoor statue of the Goddess of Mercy in Asia.
Ng said the company predicted there would be demand for the route after studying the traffic of Donghai Airlines, its sister company which operates flights between Shenzhen and Zhoushan every day.
“Before our direct flight was available, Hongkongers had to fly to Ningbo and take a two-hour coach to reach Zhoushan, and [then] a ferry ride to Mount Putuo, which would take up almost a whole day,” she said.
“We hope the route will allow Buddhist pilgrims from Thailand and Taiwan to travel to Zhoushan via Hong Kong too.”
Among Hong Kong’s population of 7.5 million, about a million are Buddhists, according to official statistics.
Ng said the beaches and accommodation in Zhoushan were also attractive to city dwellers seeking a retreat from their urban lives.
Noting that both Hong Kong and Zhoushan were maritime cities, Ng said she also expected some seamen would use the new route to transfer from Hong Kong to the Philippine capital of Manila, a key port in Southeast Asia.
Return flights between Hong Kong and Zhoushan will be available every Monday, Thursday and Saturday, with each flight taking about two hours.
The company is currently the only carrier offering direct air travel to Zhoushan and the new flight is the first and only international route out of the city’s airport.
A visit by the Post to Mount Putuo via the inaugural flight found the attraction crowded with pilgrims even during the off-peak season, with many having visited multiple times, returning to renew their vows after their wishes were fulfilled, in accordance with Buddhist practices.
Some of the tourists spent a few nights at the temples for religious retreats, which included Buddhist studies, meditation and vegetarian meals.
“Looking ahead, we hope to introduce unique, less-travelled destinations to the market,” Ng said. “We are looking at a few cities along the Three Gorges of the Yangtze River ... there are already direct flights to Wuhan and Chongqing, and then there is Yichang.”
There is currently no direct flight from Hong Kong to Yichang, a city in Hubei province.
Ng said the airline had spent the first two years after it was established in 2022 adding popular destinations, such as Tokyo and Osaka, but most of its travellers had now been to those places more than once and sought to transfer to other destinations.
The carrier from last Friday also allowed all passengers to bring a carry-on bag of 7kg (15.4lbs), with a free allowance of 20kg for checked baggage except for certain discounted flights.
A number of seats would also be offered for free selection, allowing passengers to sit with their companions without paying additional charges.
Ng said she hoped the perks offered in baggage and seating would remove the “stress of travelling”, adding that the airline would not adjust flight prices, given those benefits.
More from South China Morning Post:
- Greater Bay Airlines launches flights to Japan’s Yonago to woo Hongkongers amid price war
- Hong Kong’s Greater Bay Airlines sells out of HK$20 fares to Bangkok under promotion drive
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