Services to JNB seem to be going to 5x a week starting in April, then daily from July onwards.

I think Canada's new relative openness is the main driver behind these moves for CX, HX, and the mainland carriers (basically, reallocating resources from Europe routes, which are now quite saturated).

Don’t forget CX can connect the morning arrival passengers from India to Canada…that is huuuuuuuuuge demand

They have launched twice-weekly flights to YVR starting from 18 Jan 2025. Think CX increased frequency to try to cut out the competition?

AC did not release 2025NS schedule, and AC21/22 might not be there anymore, so IMO maybe it has something to do with AC rather HX

plus it seems like canada has absurdly high demand from asia, and with other carries like NH, JL, BR etc. focusing more on the US, there is loads of transit and direct traffic for CX to get. a lot of Hong Kongers go to the university of Toronto as well.

its also nice to see another long distance destination, JNB go to daily.

Don't you think that (until very recently) it's been more of an issue of absurdly constricted supply? I'm more curious about what prompted Canada to open the spigot and stop catering almost exclusively to the whims of its flag carrier

IMO it’s still the willingness of AC to deploy more capacity on China.

They admitted that the transatlantic routes did not perform well several months ago and at the same time rumors came that Canada would allow more flights to China.

I will say the next round of flight addition will happen when AC would like to cut more transatlantic flights.

The same would apply to the US-China market.

CX will add more flights to Barcelona.

https://www.aeroroutes.com/eng/241119-cxns25bcn

The current seasonal service will start at the beginning of NS25 season and 4th weekly flight will be added from July. BCN is very likely to be boosted as a full-year destination next year.

We've discussing that for the past year+ in this thread:
https://www.flyertalk.com/forum/chin...ca-europe.html

As much as Delta and United are keen on jockeying for position v each other, they both seem to be pretty happy with the status quo, in which ~7 Chinese carriers divvy up 50 slot pairs so none makes a meaningful impact on the market individually. What's more the, US-China market itself is just the top half of the iceberg; pre Covid, the mainland airlines drove enough traffic through their hubs to set baseline fares for US-SE Asia.

Japanese media reported that CX is considering to resume seasonal service to Komatsu (Hokuriku region) in March 2025.

So really by August next year.
apart from Rome, Adelaide, Seattle ,DC,EWR, Dublin, Copenhagen and Tel Aviv.

CX is back at pre covid long haul capacity?

Also Brussels & Dusseldorf which CX used to serve. It is hard to imagine that CX will serve all its pre-Covid cities in Europe & N. America ever again.

It also now looks like CX will have 4 weekly flights to/from Madrid year round, looking at their timetable as it stands now.

this is correct
Neither does Hong Kong have the demand not CX the brand power to make these routes work.