Despite Hong Kong being half-way around the world, Cathay Pacific has more flights to New York City than most European airlines. That will not change later this year as Cathay plans to continue offering 25 weekly flights after October 2020. There was a flurry of news over the weekend that cited Cathay’s timetable showing it would reduce flights, but a spokesperson says the full schedule is still being loaded.
“Cathay Pacific will continue to operate 25 weekly flights to New York JFK for the Winter 2020 schedule, starting from July 2020. These are all non-stop flights. We are loading our JFK flights onto the system progressively and as such they may not be reflected in full at the moment,” a spokesperson says. Interest in Cathay’s network is high as the airline adjusts to weakened demand from civil unrest in Hong Kong.
New York even earned a special characterization from long-serving Cathay executive John Slosar, who recently retired as the airline’s chairman. “Our views on New York are very much divided into right brain and left brain,” which respectively represent the emotional and intellectual sides of human nature, he told the Wings Club last year.
“This link between Hong Kong and New York is part of supporting the global economy,” he said. “It’s one of our most important destinations.” Hong Kong and New York are both capitals for financial and professional services. The largest trading surplus from the US is with Hong Kong, and Slosar joked “At times I can take credit for part of that if we’re having a big Boeing delivery year.” Boeing is the largest exporter for the US.
Media tour of Cathay Pacific's 777-300ER Aircraft introducing Cathay Pacific's new livery, at Hong ... [+]
Besides flying local traffic, Cathay uses New York to transfer passengers to other cities via its oneworld partners, notably American Airlines. “New York is a fabulous hub for us. We have a great partnership in the US with American Airlines, in whose terminal we operate,” Slosar said. “We appreciate tremendously the relationship with American.”
For many years American codeshared on Cathay’s Hong Kong-US flights before American started its own Hong Kong flights, from Dallas and later Los Angeles. Observers say American’s focus on how many passengers it can connect to a flight made it choose Los Angeles for Hong Kong service instead of New York, which is higher-yielding but cannot hub as well as Los Angeles for American. That leaves Cathay with a comfortable grip on New York. Cathay also has a significant business using Hong Kong as a transit point between the US and elsewhere in Asia, notably Southeast Asia.
“The emotional part of our attachment to New York is so many important moments in Cathay Pacific’s history have somehow involved New York City,” Slosar said. Cathay started service to New York in 1996 via Vancouver. A non-stop flight in July 1998 was not only the first non-stop service from the US East Coast to Hong Kong, it also flew over the North Pole and was the first commercial flight to land at Hong Kong’s new Chek Lap Kok airport, which replaced famed Kai Tak.
New York was Cathay’s longest route until it started Washington DC flights in 2018.
From 2004 Cathay briefly used A340-600s until switching to 777-300ERs. Cathay uses an A350-900 to Newark, and if A350s replace any 777s in Cathay’s finalized New York schedule, there could be seat count adjustments.
While most western hemisphere airlines have a flagship flight number of 001, Cathay’s symbolically important flight number is the auspicious 888, which means triple fortune. CX888 flies daily to New York JFK via Vancouver, but once the Vancouver-New York segment ends, CX888 will only apply to Vancouver. But New York will still have plenty of flights.
