Travellers' Checks | Flying from Hong Kong to Da Nang once took almost six hours
- These days the popular route is flown by a number of airlines and usually takes about 90 minutes
- With the Vietnamese destination growing in popularity, there are now more than 30 flights operating between the two cities
The first flight to carry airmail from England to Hong Kong – which The China Mail described as “epoch-making” and The Hongkong Telegraph as “a milestone in the history of aviation in Hongkong” – arrived here on March 24, 1936. The Imperial Airways de Havilland DH86, named Dorado (pictured above, at Kai Tak airport), had set out from Penang, in what was then Malaya, the previous day, and flown in that morning (with only one passenger) from the town of Tourane, on the east coast of French Indochina.
This was the end of an eight-day journey for the mail, which had been carried as far as Penang by an Australia-bound Imperial Airways flying boat. From Victoria Harbour, HMS Hermes (the world’s first purpose-built aircraft carrier) sent up nine Royal Air Force planes to escort Dorado on its final approach into Kai Tak airport, where hundreds of spectators were waiting.
Da Nang didn’t really catch on with Hong Kong tourists, though, until Dragonair began scheduled flights in 2013. HK Express followed in 2015 and Jetstar Pacific (the former Pacific Airlines) resumed the route in 2017. Next month, low-cost airline VietJet will launch daily flights on the route, raising the number of weekly flights from Hong Kong to Da Nang, and its now burgeoning international luxury hotel and resort scene, to almost 30.
Dorado and Delphinus took about 5½ hours to make the trip. The flying time these days is usually 90 minutes or less.