Cathay Pacific Airways

## What is Cathay Pacific Airways?

**Cathay Pacific Airways Ltd. (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 consisting of Airbus A330, Airbus A350 and Boeing 777 wide-body aircraft. Cathay Pacific Cargo operates two 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 celebrated its 70th anniversary in 2016; and as of March 2018, its major shareholders are Swire Pacific, with a 45% stake and Air China, with a 29% stake.

Cathay Pacific is the world's tenth largest airline measured by sales, and fourteenth largest measured by 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 measured by cargo traffic.[9]

It is one of the founding members of the Oneworld alliance. Cathay Pacific's subsidiary Cathay Dragon is an affiliate member of Oneworld.

## Early Days...

Cathay Pacific Airways was founded on 24 September 1946 in Hong Kong. Sydney "Syd" de Kantzow, Roy Farrell, Neil Buchanan, Donald Brittan Evans and Robert "Bob" Stanley Russell were the initial shareholders. Buchanan and Russell already worked for de Kantzow and Farrell at Roy Farrell Import-Export Company, the predecessor of Cathay Pacific, which was initially headquartered in Shanghai. Both de Kantzow and Farrell were ex-air force pilots who had flown the Hump, a route over the Himalayan mountains. Farrell purchased the airline's first aircraft, a Douglas DC-3, nicknamed *Betsy*, at Bush Field, New York City in 1945. The company began freight services on 28 January 1946 from Sydney to Shanghai, after Farrell and Russell flew the plane to Australia and obtained a license to carry freight (but not passengers) earlier that month.

They named the airline *Cathay*, the ancient name given to China, and *Pacific* because Farrell speculated that they would one day fly across the Pacific (which happened in the 1970s). Moreover, to avoid the name "Air Cathay" as it had already been used in a comic. The Chinese name for the company ("國泰") was not settled on until the 1950s. It comes from a Chinese idiom meaning "peace and prosperity" and was at the time often used by other businesses called "Cathay" in English.

## Fleet

As of May 2021 Cathay Pacific currently operates the following:

## Cargo Fleet

Cathay Pacific Cargo fleet

Cathay Pacific Cargo operates to more than 40 destinations around the world, in addition to utilising the cargo space on the passenger aircraft. The cargo subsidiary was established in 1981 with a twice-a-week Hong Kong–Frankfurt–London service operated jointly with Lufthansa. Cathay Pacific Cargo handles most of the airline's passenger cargo. Between its cargo routes and the passenger routes, it serves more than 80 destinations.

## Livery

Before November 1994, all Cathay Pacific aircraft used a "green lettuce" livery and carried the British flag on the empennage. After the handover, aircraft carry the Brand Hong Kong logo and with *HONG KONG* or in Chinese *香港* under or beside the Brand Hong Kong logo instead of using the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (HKSAR) flag. The HKSAR flag has never appeared on any aircraft.

All Cathay Pacific aircraft carry the following livery, logos and trademarks: the "brushwing" livery on the body and on the vertical stabiliser, introduced in the early 1990s, and was first deployed on a Boeing 747-400 (VR-HOT, re-registered as B-HOT), ahead of the launch of Airbus A340 service for Cathay Pacific. It also features the "Asia's world city" brandline, the Brand Hong Kong logotype and the dragon symbol; the Oneworld logo and the Swire Group logo.

The brushwing logo consists of a calligraphic stroke against a green background; the stroke is intended to appear like the wing of a bird. The previous logo, consisting of green and white stripes, was in place from the early 1970s until 1994.

In November 2015, the airline revealed a refreshed version of its previous livery, featuring a simpler paint scheme while maintaining their trademark brushwing on an all-green tail. It was first unveiled on a Boeing 777-300ER (B-KPM), in preparation for the delivery of the first Airbus A350 for Cathay Pacific. The second aircraft was a freighter aircraft, Boeing 747-400ERF (B-LIA).