Royal Jordanian

Royal Jordanian has announced that it will be expanding its presence in the Far East markets this winter by flying 3 additional flights to Bangkok and extending them to Hong Kong, a new city in its network. These 3 additional flights will be flown using an A 310-300 and will make its BKK operation become daily.

RJ is part of the One World alliance group hence the desire to connect HKG; a major OW hub of fellow member Cathay Pacific with its own.

Analysis :

Even though HKG airport is a key One World hub, that does not warrant the need for RJ to fly there, that too via BKK using a small A 310-300. Besides the fact that O&D traffic between HKG & AMM is minimal, by using such a small plane on this type of a route, RJ is guaranteed to lose money as the aircraft is too small to be effectively here. RJ needs to deploy their A 342 to HKG via BKK if there is to be any serious chance of making decent revenue on this route. This is because of the extra passenger and cargo carrying capacity the A 342 provides compared to the A 313.

Also why would anyone from AMM want to fly on an old aging RJ A 313 to HKG via BKK when they can do so on a daily basis via DXB/DOH on EK & QR respectively who offer superior in-flight product on board their A 332s/A 346s respectively.