A top executive of Cathay Pacific said the airlines is expecting its Doha-Hong Kong flights to “perform even better” in the second half of 2014 after the route received a “tremendous response” from passengers since it was launched in March this year.

Cathay Pacific Airways manager Qatar Nick Brooks said: “Cathay Pacific continues to strengthen our passenger network and the connections available through Hong Kong. With the launch of our Doha service in March and the high quality of our products and services, this has resulted in increased attractiveness to passengers and the extremely positive response it has received so far.”

Brooks stressed that the launch of the Doha route at the end of March 2014 received a “tremendous response from the market.”

“As we expect the Doha route to perform even better in the second half of 2014, Cathay Pacific remains in a strong position to maintain the quality of our products and services and to continue with our long-term strategic investments,” he added.

The Doha route is being serviced by an Airbus A330-300 aircraft, which introduces Cathay Pacific’s three-class configuration to leisure and business travellers in Doha. This includes its Business Class, Premium Economy Class, and long-haul Economy Class.

Brooks said Cathay Pacific introduced passenger services to Doha and Newark in March and has announced the introduction of services to Manchester and Zurich from December 2014 and March 2015, respectively. Dragonair, a fully-owned subsidiary of Cathay Pacific, started flying to Denpasar-Bali and Penang and increased services on a number of other routes.

Brooks also said the Cathay Pacific Group reported that profits for the first six months of 2014 increased to HK$347mn compared to the HK$24mn recorded for same period in 2013.

The Group added that passenger revenue in the first half of the year increased by 4.4% to HK$3.65bn compared to the same period in 2013. Capacity increased by 5.3% as a result of the introduction of new routes and increased frequencies on existing long-haul routes.

 

Innovation Challenge contest

The Innovation and Research group at Al Jazeera Media Network has kicked off its first major community initiative with an online Innovation Challenge.

This is an open competition aiming to surface new ideas about storytelling in mobile and web applications.

The Innovation Challenge competition offers substantial rewards, including the possibility of future incubation of winning ideas, invitations to large innovation events in the future, and $25,000 in cash prizes.

Morad Rayyan from Al Jazeera Innovation and Research invited software designers, technologists, and developers from around the world to participate:

“The topic of exploration for this first Challenge will be ‘nonlinear narratives’. Typically, the stories and content we create and consume are linear, and follow a logical, cause and effect structure. Yet our minds and memories work in a nonlinear way, and this offers an opportunity for new types of storytelling, and new methods of media consumption.

“The applications and software put together for the Innovation Challenge should provide new, flexible, and reusable methods of creating or consuming such nonlinear narratives.”

Al Jazeera is looking for participants from its global audience with a variety of expertise, ranging from idea conception, through design/prototyping, and all the way to development. Full eligibility requirements are available at the Challenge website.

Early registration is encouraged so participants can start drafting their submissions, or browse existing submissions as they begin appearing.

Challenge participants can also team up through the platform with others who are looking for assistance with their ideas, which will be helpful considering the time period for submissions is limited.

Participants can go to http://aljazeera.challengepost.com and register. The submission period will be open until September 30, 2014, 14:00 GMT.