Happy Birthday Cathay Pacific

CATHAY PACIFIC A350-941 B-LRQ (CN 109) 

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. Before Covid, the airline's operations and subsidiaries had scheduled passenger and cargo services to more than 190 destinations in more than 79 countries worldwide. Cathay Pacific operates a fleet of 132 wide-body aircraft, consisting of Airbus A330's, Airbus A350's and Boeing 777 equipment. Cathay Pacific Cargo operates the Boeing 747. 

CATHAY PACIFIC CARGO B747-867 B-LJG (CN 39244)

Cathay Pacific was founded on the 24th September 1946 by Australian Sydney H. de Kantzow and American Roy C. Farrell. They named the airline Cathay, which is 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 popular comic. 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.  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 also an affiliate member of Oneworld.) Before 1994, all Cathay Pacific aircraft had a "green lettuce" livery on the tail and carried the British flag on the empennage.  In the early 90's Cathay Pacific aircraft carried the new "brushwing" livery on the body and on the vertical stabiliser. 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. In 2019 Cathay was voted 4th best airline in the world behind ANA 3rd, Singapore 2nd and Qatar 1st.

As of March 2018, its major shareholders were Swire Pacific, Qatar Airways and Air China. 

Aircraft                            Current fleet   

Airbus A330-300                           10 Active             8 Parked

Airbus A350-1000                         12

Airbus A350-900                           12 Active             14 Parked

Boeing 747-400                              6

Boeing 747-800                              14

Boeing 777-300                              16 Active             40 Parked