"San Francisco is about the limit of the A350's reach in North America, from Taipei. Singapore Airlines flies the A350 to San Francisco from Singapore – much further south than Taipei – but with A350s that have a higher maximum take off weight.
San Francisco and Vancouver are China Airlines' only North American destinations within normal range of the A350, so China Airlines has exhausted its A350 network opportunities in North America unless it takes higher take-off weight aircraft, or hurts economics with one stop services or payload restrictions."

I just read this from CAPA.

Are Cathay's A359 HGW variant?
And if they are not, I guess they are not going to East Coast (or even SFO) anytime soon?

Fwiw, Airbus has said A350 operators can switch switch orders to the ulr variants (the ones successfully campaigned-for by SQ and a few of the airline leasing companies) if they desire. CX is halfway through receiving its A350-900s, and by the time the ulr is ready CX will be ready to take its -1000s. So I'm not sure if CX will upgrade any, my bet is on "no." SQ will probably swap their current normal A350-900 flying to SFO for the A350-900ulr in 2018, as well as sending it to LAX and EWR.

The CAPA article is a little deceptive I think. My understanding is the only difference in the SQ birds is they're not selling 20-30 economy seats in Y on the return sector SFO-SIN, but otherwise the engines and plane rating are precisely the same as what CX is flying. There won't be a real difference until SQ takes delivery of the A350-900ulrs next year. I'd have to research China Airlines' A350 orderbook, but again Airbus is allowing anyone to upgrade the A350-900 to A350-900ulr without losing delivery slots. SQ is operating the route despite the inefficiency because United beat them to the punch with the B789 nonstop.

Admittedly not selling Y seats isn't good economics. I also suspect they aren't filling that plane up with cargo on the return, either, which also sucks.

from french media, Paris route will increase 1 weekly by using A350 from 3 Dec 2017.

http://www.air-cosmos.com/cathay-pac...ong-kong-90969

How prone is the Manila A350 to being equipment swapped away?

I have about 12 flights on the 350. Since June my 350 flights got swapped around 3 times.

Where have they got that from? From everything I've read the A350 should have the legs on a 77W at all payloads.

Have CI really derated them that much?

No, nobody that I know has done anything physically to any of the A350s. The article is bizarrely...wrong I think. Or just clueless. The only difference with SQ is they're not selling some economy seats and presumably have cargo restrictions on the return. But, that return flight SFO-SIN is averaging nearly 17 hours of flying time each day. The article is trying to imply there are different variants....Which is nonsense for now.

But I find it interesting that the only route operated by an A350 that is >7000mi is SIN-SFO.
SIN-Europe & DOH-East Coast are only only about 6700mi.

I hear you, but it's not the distance necessarily.... It's the winds on the return. That flight is, on a near daily basis, the longest (time) flight in the world, and if not #1 it is either #2 or 3.

Anyway, QR is operating the a359 from Doha to somewhere in eastern Australia daily, I'm almost certain.

Yes ADL. Doubtful that a 359 has problems making the range of a 77W.

Don't get me wrong, I really hope that Cathay would fly A350 to East Coast too.

Aer Lingus document shows that the A359 only has a range of 7000mi too
http://i104.photobucket.com/albums/m...0/EIranges.jpg
http://www.gcmap.com/map?P=&R=7050nm...i%40dub&MS=wls
The darker portion is 7050nm@DUB, ligher is 7050mi@DUB.

Isn't that 7050nm on the EI graph as well?

HKG-JFK is 7000nm.

San Francisco is getting the A359 beginning October 31, CX892/893. Schedules right now only showing the 3x/week changeover but it's supposed to be updated to daily shortly.

Manchester is getting a 6th weekly service too, also A359.

Sorry, I meant the distance shown on the EI map itself. It was labeled as 7050nm, but shown as 7050mi.

You can probably see BOS, EWR and ORD down the line.