Cathay Pacific Asia Miles - any rumor when will CX fly to moscow

i know it is delayed
but when will they begin to fly on CX metal to moscow?
it only said they hope to fly later of this year
:(

This route (HKG-DME/SVO-MAN) has been delayed for about 2 years now, so who knows when it will happen. The impediment is the need to bribe Russian officials (or, as they put it, for CX to pay exorbinant fees). Given that it hasn't been abandonned yet by CX would seem to indicate that it will happen eventually, they are just working through some incredibly bureaucratic Russian process.

I understand that the Moscow-Hong Kong leg is fine but that Russia wants reciprocity from the UK on the Moscow-Manchester leg before it will give fifth freedom rights to Cathay. It's been delayed according to Cathay and they didn't give a date for when they thought that it might operate.

From the SCMP
A Cathay spokesperson said: "Unfortunately, we continue to await the completion of regulatory formalities regarding Manchester, which is taking longer than originally anticipated, so the airline has made the decision now to postpone."

According to an executive involved in the talks, a key hurdle is Aeroflot's lack of traffic rights to fly to Manchester, a fact Cathay management was appraised of only late last month. Cathay would not comment on Aeroflot's bilateral status yesterday but none of the problems are thought to originate on the Hong Kong side.

Interesting that we all pay the Russians to overfly their country (with most of the fees going to Aeroflot) but they don't pay anyone to fly over other countries (nor does anyone else though to be honest, Russia's an exception I understand).

Interesting, CX used to fly HKG-AMS-MAN and was considering HKG-MUC-MAN 2x weekly intermixed with HKG-DME-MAN. Perhaps they will reconsider a Munich routing (maybe not so good for business and student traffic, but great for football traffic).

Interesting that we all pay the Russians to overfly their country (with most of the fees going to Aeroflot) but they don't pay anyone to fly over other countries (nor does anyone else though to be honest, Russia's an exception I understand).

Russia and mainland China never signed the "freedoms of the air" agreement which was drawn up by ICAO in Chicago at the end of WW11.

That is why they can still restrict who uses their airspace for overflying (I believe that, to this day, no Taiwanese carrier uses Russian airspace) and why they can charge royalty fees when airlines are given permission to route over their territories.

Go back to the Cold War area and you'll find that virtually no Western carriers were allowed to overfly these countries unless bound for a city within their territory, eg London-Moscow, or Tokyo-Moscow.

Flights between Europe and Asia had to take longer routings and flight times took much longer than today as planes had to make one or two refuelling stops.

Some carriers were granted limited overflying rights. Eg BA and JL were allowed to operate a limited number of London-Moscow-Tokyo services but the Soviets insisted these carriers operate on narrow-bodied planes (B707s for BA ; DC8-62s for JL) rather than B747s. The rumour was that the Soviets didn't want the locals to see the sort of aircraft the capitalist West was capable of building !

So until the 1980s, in order to avoid Russia and China, the Western carriers routinely routed their flights via the "Silk Route" (for BKK, SIN, HKG) or via Anchorage (for TYO and SEL) and journey times were much much longer than today.

Only SU operated Europe-Asia via Moscow. But few passengers would fly SU because of its poor reputation for service even though it offered massive discounts in a bid to raise hard currency for the then Communist regime.

So until the 1980s, in order to avoid Russia and China, the Western carriers routinely routed their flights via the "Silk Route" (for BKK, SIN, HKG) or via Anchorage (for TYO and SEL) and journey times were much much longer than today.

Only SU operated Europe-Asia via Moscow. But few passengers would fly SU because of its poor reputation for service even though it offered massive discounts in a bid to raise hard currency for the then Communist regime.

Actually, QF's used to fly over the edge of Himalayas (and Delhi) in the India
subcontinent for QF29/30 until they've granted permission to fly a more direct
route across China (and I think this is the first time QF did fly over Russian
airspace). However the flight time of LHR-HKG is the same as the ordinary
routing via China/Mongolia, if not shorter. In Feburary last year I flew on
QF30 and the flight time is 11:01, the same time this year, the route has
become shorter but the flight time is 16 minutes longer, despite of the
continously high ground speed and strong tailwind. HKG-LHR should be another
story and the scheduled flight time posted by QF was actually 13:55, now it is
only 13:00.

How about the polar flights anyway? Why could CX, CO, UA etc. get rights
to fly over russian airspace in order to reach the ploe?

How about the polar flights anyway? Why could CX, CO, UA etc. get rights
to fly over russian airspace in order to reach the ploe?

Russian overflying rights are negotiable today. But in the Soviet area this wasn't always the case.