Originally Posted by
djsflynn
That's a nice 'recommendation' but CX is already very capex-heavy on its future fleet, and to my knowledge it has no 'options' on the books – which means Cathay would need to place a new order (expensive) and stand in line behind the many other airlines waiting for A350 deliveries. So as nice as it might be to see four-class A350-1000s, even if Cathay inked an order right now those planes would be many years away. The airline is pretty much locked into its 777 fleet plan, at least for now, and obviously everyone's hoping the 777-9 finally begins commercial flights in late 2025.
Could that change? Well look, if it got to breaking point and a bunch of airlines walked away from their 777-9 orders (with a refund + interest from Boeing!), that'd see a massive crunch on A350 orders as the obvious (only) real replacement, and Airbus can't just magik up a similarly massive increase in production, so we're back to long l-o-n-g delays. But let's not worry about any of that for now, and see how things develop in Boeing-land.
CX is adding a ton of long haul frequencies soon which they're already extremely dominant in. I think due to lack of planes it's unlikely Cathay can further add flights until the B777X arrives which would take too long. Even if they order more a350 it would take at least 4 years.
It's a shame as with so many western airlines leaving china recently, they could easily get even more market share, and CX has better products than the mainland Chinese airlines.