Isn't CA the ONLY airline that flies between Asia and Geneva, and just several times per month, at that?

I think their plan is to replace A359 by B777X on high yield route such as LHR/JFK/SFO and deploy these A359 on new routes. At least we need to wait until late 2026 given the slower than expected 777X certification progress.

Your naive belief that this is how Skytrax rankings are actually derived is quite touching really.

I respect your statement. Do you have evidence that those Skytrax rankings aren't based on customer surveys (as they claim)? So you're saying they're committing fraud? The link below is what Skytrax claims in terms of survey methodology. Please tell us, which part is false or misleading?

If you're saying Skytrax is a total fraud, surely that means none of the rankings can be trusted. Including the 4 airlines that ranked ahead of CX in this year's survey (in terms of overall ranking).

2024 World Airline Awards Methodology

I suppose the most obvious conflict of interest is that they provide consulting services to airlines to help them increase their ratings, but that's really just the tip of the iceberg.

The following article is 12 years old. I'm including it instead of some of the more recent pieces on the topic because it's a little stronger than some random blog. However, I will say that when dozens of random blogs make the same observations, they become more credible (i.e. just look at the big picture).

https://www.asa.org.uk/rulings/skytr...12-196416.html

Also lived in Geneva. It's quite small as a city, fewer than half a million people in the surrounding canton. Much of the international traffic is diplomatic and there is less reason for a direct from HK than a capital city for that reason (HK does have a presence on some of the international bodies but not as many as a sovereign state). Despite plenty of capitals having more reason though, aside from the Gulf carriers which can draw from a wider connecting market than HK, I think there are only regular long hauls to NY for the UN people. There is also the banking and energy trading sector, but it isn't what it used to be since new banking transparency rules were imposed and a lot of the energy trade moved to the Gulf. CX also already connects to many nearby western European cities.

Yes, I agree there are issues with Skytrax - the same can be said against a wide variety of survey based rankings for everything (not just airlines). I personally find CX ranking #1 in "cleanest airline" to be suspect to say the least. But, ranking Qatar, SQ, Emirates in the Top 3 overall seems totally reasonable when compared to popular perception & reviews from other unrelated sources. Ranking CX #5 this year does not necessarily mean Skytrax is a fraud. My original point was to counter the assertion that CX is a 'weak brand' and Skytrax's shortcomings/inadequacies doesn't change that at all (IMO).

HK Govt putting pressure on CX
 

SCMP says:
Financial Secretary Chan wants CX to prioritize new BRI routes.
Transport Secretary Lam says city won't depend only on CX, too slow, to grow traffic as new 3rd runway capacity has to be used.
Mentions new incentive scheme for other carriers to grow HK traffic, both routes and frequency.
Could 5th freedoms be on the table?
Finally, sounds like city will put overall volume over CX market power (and about time).

https://www.scmp.com/news/hong-kong/...%20next%20year.

This could certainly make things interesting; i.e. Mainland carriers theoretically carry the water for Papa Bear by operating pointless routes, and then offset their losses with good routes. Of course, this is essentially the same game they're playing with CX one-on-one now.

The unanswered issue is scarcity of HKG ground services, which would still be a problem even if foreign carriers come/return.

A nice foreign-carrier scissor hub in HKG might force CX to up its game on its bread and butter.

i think CX is doing well in restoring capacity unlike what the government says, given the massive increase in capacity in the past few weeks, but the lack of ground handling is indeed hurting it. and SCMP hates CX anyway

I believe foreign carriers got denied from increasing service to HKG, as there hasn't been a single foreign carrier increasing service here in a long time. i think turkish was going to increase to 2 daily but got denied. i would be glad if that changes.

the government also said egyptair would resume services this year.

I don’t know where to post this but I think it is vital to CX future route resumption: it is reported that 777X finally got TIA this week. This means 777X trial flight will be inspected by FAA. Typically we need to wait for another 18 months until it gets certificated.

If everything goes well. 777X will get certificated in early 2026. It is a 6-month-delay, but not too bad for CX

https://theaircurrent.com/feed/dispa...rials-faa-tia/

Hong Kong’s Cathay Pacific eyes prospect of daily flights to 2 Hainan cities, CEO says: Haikou and Sanya

https://www.scmp.com/news/hong-kong/...gtype=homepage

Looks like its a restoration of the old KA flights to Hainan Island from HKG. That was shown as a Blue line Dragonair destinations on a 2001-2006 Discovery magazine editions.

Given the small physical size of Switzerland and its excellent rail links, the Zurich service should be sufficient to take care of Geneva traffic as well.