Cathay Pacific Starting Hong Kong To Dusseldorf Flights

Too bad it this route starts after my holiday plans.

Just of the record Ben, a lot of growth in Dusseldorf is the effect of Dutch& Belgian legislators to increase taxes on flights departing from here. When you are closer to the german border than Amsterdam/Brussels you'de be fool flying with KLM/Brussels in economy that is way below emirates/cathay standards etc 😉

That is just CX being weird.

Well, Düsseldorf may be just the seventh largest city in Germany, but the airport serves Germany's most densely populated region and no fewer than 9 of Germany's largest 20 cities are within fewer than 100 kilometers from this airport, so IMHO it absolutely makes sense.

Just a small notice, Düsseldorf features the biggest japanese community of Germany - maybe their target group are connecting passengers to southeast Asia.

Also helps the herds of tourists traveling between southeast Asia/China and Europe. I believe China Airlines has the only other direct flight. More routes like this are going to have to be added for European and Asian carriers to compete with the ME3.

Düsseldorf is known as really wealthy city. So...great for CX in regard to their premium seats. Furthermore CX will have a USP, as neither TG nor SQ fly to DUS.

Dusseldorf airport serves one of the largest - if not the largest - metropolitan areas in Germany (think for example about Cologne, a bigger city than Dusseldorf). If they are adding a destination after Frankfurt, it makes sense, plus being a Air Berlin hub.

The whole Rhine Ruhr region is a sprawling population center with historical manufacturing and mining and other industry (hence heavy WW II bombing). And as above, the NRW is a wealthy region. Dusseldorf and Koln are both worth extended visits and are gateways to the Rhine region to the south - go and learn about the competing beer styles before seeing some castles!

Air Berlin probably sealed the deal, bit the whole area is all of the above, but also connected via rail to a much of its surroundings, which makes the deal even better.

Ben,

Which hotel would you recommend for Hong Kong using either SPG or Club Carlson points?

Thanks

What will happen once BER goes into service? Any info on international carriers taking up slots?

DUS serves the entire Rhein Ruhr area, which is a metropolitan area with over 11 million inhabitants (the largest metro area in Germany, by far; it is way bigger than Greater Berlin or the Frankfurt/Rhein-Main area for example). Plus many people from the Netherlands and Belgium tend to fly out of DUS.

As others have mentioned, it's not about the City Düsseldorf. It's about the Rhine-Ruhr area, where more than 1/8th of Germany's population live.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rhine-Ruhr
Berlin, Frankfurt and Munich metropolitan areas only have half the population (~5 million each) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metropolitan_regions_in_Germany

In addition to that, this airport also draws a lot of customers from the Netherlands. You can't miss the countless yellow (=Dutch) license plates in the car parks - especially when you take the Airport's train between the car parks and the terminal.

It looks like DUS will become quite the OneWorld hub. Frankly, I welcome this since DUS is a very smooth airport for transiting, far cheaper than LHR, and well connected for intra-europe travel. Since MUC and FRA are strong Star cities, CDG and AMS strong Sky, and TXL/SXF still a complete mess, DUS makes a lot of sense. This should give us many more options for travel on to Asia and the Middle East.

The only bad part is that AB has only coach for intra-Europe flights.

@M - Pretty much everyone only has economy intra-Europe (blocking the middle seat and giving out granola bars does not make it business class)

@ Rachid: W hotel in Kowloon is really nice. Next to a large high-end shopping mall, and only 20 min from the airport using the express train.

As Tim said its not just Dusseldorf its the region. There are over 11 million people in the region of 9700km2. For comparison Sydney has 4.7 million people over 12000km2.

Its more to do with the fact that European cities usually only include the city proper whereas US and Australian cites incorporate the surrounds into population.

ANA has been operating to DUS since S14 AFAIK, below link is confirming this.

https://www.ana.co.jp/eng/aboutana/press/2013/131218.html

Or is there another route they have recently announced, perhaps KIX-DUS ?

@ Rachid -- As far as SPG goes, W is awesome if you have enough points. Haven't done any Club Carlson properties there, though.

@ Wolfgang -- Good catch, fixed!

Great news! Thanks for this one!