Cathay Pacific Airways Limited (CPA), also known as Cathay Pacific or Cathay, is the flag carrier of Hong Kong, with its head office and main hub located at Hong Kong International Airport. The airline's operations and subsidiaries have scheduled passenger and cargo services to more than 190 destinations in more than 60 countries worldwide including codeshares and joint ventures. Cathay Pacific operates a fleet of wide-body aircraft, consisting of Airbus A330, Airbus A350 and Boeing 777 equipment. Cathay Pacific Cargo operates three models of the Boeing 747. Wholly owned subsidiary airline Cathay Dragon operates to 44 destinations in the Asia-Pacific region from its Hong Kong base. In 2010, Cathay Pacific and Cathay Pacific Cargo, together with Cathay Dragon, carried nearly 27 million passengers and over 1.8 million tons of cargo and mail.
The airline was founded on 24 September 1946 by Australian Sydney H. de Kantzow and American Roy C. Farrell. The airline made the world's first non-stop transpolar flight flying over the North Pole in July 1998 (originating from New York JFK airport), which was also the maiden flight to arrive at the then new Hong Kong International Airport.Template:Citation needed The airline celebrated its 70th anniversary in 2016; and Template:As of, its major shareholders are Swire Pacific, Qatar Airways and Air China. It is reciprocally one of the major shareholders of Air China.
Cathay Pacific is the world's tenth largest airline measured in terms of sales, and fourteenth largest measured in terms of market capitalisation. In 2010, Cathay Pacific became the world's largest international cargo airline, along with main hub Hong Kong International Airport as the world's busiest airport in terms of cargo traffic.
It is one of the founding members of the Oneworld alliance. Cathay Pacific's subsidiary Cathay Dragon is an affiliate member of Oneworld.
History[]
In January 1990, Cathay Pacific and its parent company, Swire Pacific, acquired a significant shareholding in Dragonair, and a 75% stake in cargo airline Air Hong Kong in 1994. During the early 1990s, the airline launched a program to upgrade its passenger service. The green and white striped livery was replaced with the current "brushwing" livery. In 1994 the airline invested in a new corporate identity, with a 23 million Hong Kong dollar program to update its image. The fleet was expected to have the new logo within four years. The airline began a US$9 billion fleet replacement program during the mid-1990s that gave it one of the youngest fleets in the world. In 1996, CITIC Pacific increased its holdings in Cathay Pacific from 10% to 25%, while the Swire Group holding was reduced to 44% as two other Chinese companies, CNAC(G) and CTS, also bought substantial holdings. According Cathay Pacific's entry in the volume 1 of International Directory of Company Histories, the disinvestment of 12.5% stake of Cathay Pacific by Swire Pacific, to a Chinese state-owned company, was regard "as evidence of China's sincerity in maintaining the prosperity of Hong Kong."
On 1 July 1997, the administration of Hong Kong was transferred from the UK to the People's Republic of China as part of the Hong Kong handover. Most of the airline's aircraft were registered in Hong Kong with a registration beginning with "VR". Under the terms of an agreement within the Sino-British Joint Liaison Group (JLG), all registrations were changed by December 1997 to the prefix "B" used by the People's Republic of China and the Republic of China (Taiwan). Cathay Pacific aircraft formerly carried a painted UK Union Flag on the tail, but these were removed several years before the 1997 takeover.
On 21 May 1998, Cathay Pacific took the first delivery of the Boeing 777-300 at a ceremony in Everett. On 21 September 1998, Cathay Pacific, together with American Airlines, British Airways, Canadian Airlines, and Qantas, co-founded the Oneworld airline alliance. Cathay Pacific temporarily took over the domestic and international operations of Philippine Airlines during its fourteen-day shutdown from 26 September to 7 October 1998. The airline was hurt by the Asian financial crisis of the late 1990s, but recorded a record HK$5 billion profit in 2000.
New Hong Kong International Airport and transpolar flights[]
On Monday, 6 July 1998, at 00:00 HKT, Kai Tak International Airport saw its last commercial departure, Cathay Pacific Flight 251 (a Boeing 747-400 with reg B-HOW) to London Heathrow Airport, after over 73 years of operation. The next day, Cathay Pacific Flight 889 (a Boeing 747-400 from New York John F. Kennedy International Airport piloted by Captain Paul Horsting with reg B-HUJ), was the first arrival to the new Hong Kong International Airport at Chek Lap Kok, Hong Kong. Also on board were Captain Mike Lowes and First Officer Kelvin Ma. This flight was also the world's first nonstop transpolar flight from New York to Hong Kong. The flight, dubbed Polar One, takes about 16 hours between Hong Kong and New York Kennedy, saving about three to four hours compared to the one stop flight via Vancouver. It is one of the longest in the world at Template:Convert.
Destinations[]
Cathay Pacific has served 80 destinations (including cargo) and not including codeshares in 46 countries. The airline serves partnership with SNCF from Paris.
Non-stop flight is available from Hong Kong to Singapore since 11 March 2007.
Nonstop connections from Europe to Hong Kong are available from Frankfurt, Zurich, London (Heathrow and Gatwick), Manchester, Amsterdam, Paris, Madrid, Barcelona, Brussels (since 25 March 2018), Copenhagen (since 2 May 2018 ) and Dublin (since 2 June 2018).
Fleet[]
Cathay Pacific also has Airbus A330, Airbus A350 and Boeing 777 fleet. The airline also has more Airbus A350, Boeing 777X and 777-300 aircraft on order.