History Oasis Hong Kong Airlines was founded by Rev. Raymond C. Lee, and his wife, Priscilla H. Lee in February 2005. The chief executive, Steve Miller, was founder and first chief executive of another Hong Kong-based airline, Dragonair. Its inaugural route to London commenced service on October 26, 2006, [2]The first flight, flight O8 700, took off from Hong Kong International Airport after a 24-hour delay.[2] The airline had been scheduled to begin operations on October 25, but Russia revoked the London-bound flight's fly-over rights at 12:09 PM, one hour before the flight's scheduled departure.[3]
Though Oasis is a low-fare airline, it has already broken even after the first 6 months of operations. The airline says that this is achieved through flying long-haul so as to decrease maintenance and fuel costs. [4]It also has a lower cost per passenger-kilometer compared to other airlines in Hong Kong.[4] Business passengers[4], and those who used to have to transfer en-route to get to London [5], would be Oasis' main sources of revenue. Like many other airlines, Oasis plans to hedge a proportion of its fuel purchases to guard against future fuel price increases[5].
[edit] Services [citation needed] Tickets are sold through the company website and travel agents. According to the company website, one-way economy fares for the Hong Kong-London route start at £75 or HK$1,000 (excluding taxes and charges) for at least 10% of the seats available and include hot meals and in-flight entertainment. Business class fares start at £470 or HK$6,600 (excluding taxes and charges). For the Hong Kong-Vancouver route, tickets can be purchased in travel agencies and online. One-way economy fares for Vancouver start at HK$1,990 (excluding taxes and charges) for at least 10% of the seats available. Like London, hot meals and in-flight entertainment are included, but the luggage allowance for Vancouver is 30kg instead of London's 23kg(both in economy class). Round trip business class fares start at HKD$18,000 (excluding taxes and charges).
Though the airline offers substantially lower fares than other carriers flying the same routes, it provides a similar level of passenger space. The seat pitch of economyOasis is 32" (same or slightly more than other airlines flying between Hong Kong and London), and a businessOasis section offers at least 50" seat pitch. The 747-400 cabins are configured for 81 business and 278 economy passengers (for ex-SQ Aircraft) or 71 business and 268 economy passengers (for ex-ANA Aircraft). Seats of the two configurations were in different design.
Two hot meals and soft drinks are currently served free on both long haul routes in all classes. Snacks and alcoholic drinks are also free for business class, available to be ordered by economy passengers. Free headphones, blankets and pillows are also distributed free in all classes, while passenger can purchase noise-canceling headphones and amenity kits onboard.[6] Each passenger has their own seat-back TV which has at least 16 channels available, in addition of up to 12 channels of audio [7].
On 28 February, 2007, Oasis Hong Kong moved all its passenger check-in operation into the newly commissioned Terminal 2 of the Hong Kong International Airport, being the first airline in Hong Kong to do so.[8]
On 16 August 2007, Oasis Hong Kong has announced that the numbers of flights between Hong Kong to London Gatwick will be increased from 7 flights to 10 flights per week starting from 16 December 2007.[9] The additional 3x weekly flights will likely be operated with one of the additional Boeing 747-400 aircraft recently obtained from the Japanese airline ANA. Oasis has timed this new departure from Hong Kong during the day, in response to passenger demand for a day sector on the route.