Yes you are right. Then I think ADL could have a shot within this year.

CEO of UO specifically mentioned it will expand Southern China(華南) and Japan new route so Sanya Hiroshima and Kunming make sense, I personally guess Guilin also. However the whole Chinese speaking area seems afraid go to Cambodia due to human trafficking issue and also Hong Kong Airlines is planning to start new route to Kuala Lumpur (they are recruiting people)so it maybe too many competition？

Gatwick and Hyderabad are not "Belt and Road" though. Cape Town...does the traffic from Joburg justify adding this back?

Even if India isn't an official bri signatory, I'm pretty sure it's still part of the plan. After all, it sits between China and its favorite European countries.

Let me guess about CRK they want it to be like MNL which is down the NLEX/Skyway from CRK where both CX and UO fly to against PR and 5J

CX-adding-belt-and-road-destinations does not mean that all the destinations are in the belt and road countries.

By the way based on my understanding, theoretically belt and road countries include all the countries except US and Canada. UK is exactly the destination of belt and road and India is a stopover.

My understanding of BRI is actually quite limited (I'm simply not well tapped into Beijing these days), but I doubt more than 1% of Chinese nationals really get it either.

However, I enjoy looking at projects and capital injections empirically as they unfold and trying to figure out the rationale, who benefits, and long term implications...sort of like a big crossword puzzle.

Basically, while BRI seemingly includes more than half of all recognized countries, clearly some of them are more equal than others.:D

The same goes for cities/provinces in China. Chongqing, for examples, has been receiving oversized portions of love. Why? What connections does it have with Hungary? Who uses the flights? What about cargo? What are the funding sources?

I don't know the answers to these questions off hand, but they are interesting to contemplate. And, maybe things will make a lot more sense 5-10 years from now.

Cathay on record late last year announcing the restart of ADL is already set for later this year also the intention to resume Cape Town as as seasonal destination . The CPT route though not critical was always welcomed and profit making with aircraft always over 90% full.
I suspect sometimes it is overlooked that Cathay is a listed business not government owned as is SIA thus its decision making is ultimately about making profit. Gatwick was a very profitable well patronised route that will be relaunched.
Perhaps best discount any noise re 'belt and road' and 'political' objectives Cathay is an important business for HK first , in a very tough competitive industry and that is well understood by governments..

According to a statement from Cathay to the government reported yesterday prior to immediately pandemic Cathay/ Cathay Dragon had 3800 trained pilots -according to the statement they currently have 3400 with 600 under training thus there is no longer an immediate shortage of pilots. Rather it a pending shortage of aircraft that may cause difficulties -
With now almost all of the useable A330s and B777 recovered from long time storage , delivery of new A320s lagging and delivery of the first 2 X 777-9s set only for mid 2025 at best it is likely the availability of aircraft that will probably be the pinch pointw- with major refits also underway for the next 3 years I would not be surprised if CX looked for some short term aircraft leases

Rumours from insiders: 32Q was planned for the ADL (stopover in CNS) route, but it didn't happen. The crew rest area would be in the last three rows of the rear end. This plan was cancelled.

If CX focuses on belt-and-road, 32Q for Darwin would be feasible and reasonable.

I am always a bit lost by these announcements.
Do you mean that CX has currently 2,800 "available" pilots? And how long is the training so that it converts into 3,400 "available" pilots. If currently 2,800, that it is still very far from the past 3,800.

Of course, it is hard to compare current CX with CX/KA ,as some former KA flights have gone to UO.

Whilst AUH might be handy, it'd make more sense to return DXB to twice daily.

Then they're adding RUH
However, we don't know yet whether HKG-RUH or HKG-DXB-RUH or HKG-BAH-RUH, given that BAH has yet to be reinstated. Might even be HKG-DOH-RUH given that QR have been pressing OW airlines to link into DOH and also that QR seem to often use planes leased from CX on HKG-DOH and occasionally also on DOH-RUH as it happens!

As someone flying to RUH quite a bit these days, and who once a year heads to BAH for a new 12-month multi-entry visa, HKG-BAH-RUH might be quite useful.
However, as far as I know there's still no word on when BAH will be added back to the schedule. (Ditto the second daily flight to DXB)

EDIT: Doubt the "fake prince" will affect BAH or RUH. If anything, might delay the reinstatement of the second daily DXB flight, but not given issues with senior pilot shortages, I suspect that by the time the senior pilot issue has been addressed, any chance of delay to DXB's 2nd daily flight caused by the fake prince will have been long gone (even if it'd have any impact anyway)


I believe the issue with pilots is specifically with senior pilots (Captains and senior FOs). And even with relaxing/ reducing criteria for SOs to become FOs and FOs to become Captains, this problem won't go away quickly. Not unless there's a major u-turn on contracts...

And re: fleet, there are still a few CX airframes leased out to other airlines, e.g. I recently flew one obvious CX plane decked out in QR livery recently. But I guess a few of these airframes would be tied-up for a while yet. So yes, aircraft likely to be another issue

As a final observation, being a business CX's footprint might be smaller than pre-Covid, but with packed flights, seats on which sold at very premium fares, whilst services and perks reduced (i.e. short-staffing of attendants onboard, continued downgrading of frequent flyer privileges for those beneath Gold), not to mention having drastically reduced T&Cs for cockpit & cabin crews, in the near-term CX's management can sit-back and count the cash. In the longer-term however...

A couple of comments re your post fah
I do have friends who are Cathay captains and their take is that this is a sort term problem at is well on the way to being resolved . The pilots contracts are no longer a day to day issue although the disaffected union would like them to be.

Nor am I am aware of any aircraft leased to other airlines.
There is a story doing the rounds for the past couple of years that Cathay had leased 5 X B777-300 to a ME airline - that however was always incorrect. Cathay had returned the aircraft to the lessor as 'not needed' prior to them being short -term leased to QR by the leasing company -these were never Cathay owned aircraft.. Similarly the one ex Cathay is aircraft short term leased at ANZ had also been previously returned to the leaser when the lease expired. Cathay now has very few aircraft. that are leased with most being owned.

As the airline is able to recruit and train more cc crew sizes are already being returned to pre-pandemic levels.

Cathay as were the vast majority of airlines were hit hard by the pandemic and as with most airlines reduced some terms and conditions of pilots and c crew. to survive
However the the rates for c crew have returned largely that of pre pandemic and all were (including pilots and grown staff) given a 7.2 weeks bonus in March when Cathay declared a yearly profit.

https://cimg0.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.fly...fb3dbc6246.jpg

Basically all the countries except America can be included in the BRI.

Only if CX gets short term leases on A350s or does a deal with Qatar to take some of their A350 deliveries will the math add up.

Until then CX is not going to bigger than CX pre covid unless you don't believe that 1+1=2.

God bless those who need to do a CRK MNL transit! I thought JFK to EWR was terrible.