I can see CX launching service to West Sydney, once it is opened, but not sure if OOL and CBR are in considerations anytime soon without the new A330-900s delivered. The new 339s can actually make these Australian secondary destinations economically feasible. I can see Cairns going back full time and Adelaide being restarted. Only then we can see possible new Australian destinations like Darwin, Gold Coast, and Canberra.

About Europe, they are most likely going to start Budapest because of Hong Kong and Mainland Chinese "one belt one road" initiative. Birmingham has been rumored for a long time but given CX has not even returned to Gatwick, it is not going to happen anytime soon.

Warsaw, Vienna and Lyons are "no" for now. Given Lufthansa has not even restarted its own Munich flight and I don't even think Austrian will restart Hong Kong flights. We have to understand that flights to Europe are so much longer now so airlines are more cautious in restarting any Asia to Europe flights. I am actually surprised that CX will start Munich and restart Brussels (before restarting Gatwick), but maybe CX just wants to take advantage of Lufthansa and Lufthansa Group's current situation with a lack of long haul aircraft. Barcelona and Rome are unsurprising because there is always high demand. For 2025, I think we are pretty much done. Hopefully once 777-9s and Airbus A330-900neo come online in 2026/27, CX can start a few interesting routes including a few ones noted here. I can see Copenhagen/Dublin/London Gatwick coming back and maybe Birmingham service can finally start.

Carfield

Beyond the market issues, CX is trying to fulfill HK government requests that it build more connections. The airport/government have also launched subsidies for connecting with Europe and North America to rebuild the network, so that's bound to be a consideration. While they're theoretically open to any carrier, CX was in position to leap on them quickly while Western carriers probably needed to do more assessments. I agree they may be taking the opportunity to steal some share on routes as well.

I'm not sure about Copenhagen - wasn't it dropped before Covid due to low loads?

I think the CX flights to MUC means LH won't be returning from MUC. They can just put their code on the MUC flight and let CX assume the risk. I wouldn't be surprised if WAW gets added for eastern Europe access. It has better connectivity than BUD. That said, I am surprised the CX/LHG codeshare hasn't been expanded yet to cover MUC and BRU so maybe connectivity through LHG isn't a factor here (or CX is just slow).

DUB - I could actually see because of the little competition from Asian carriers. Google tells me it only has twice weekly to PEK on HU.
LGW - My two cents is they would upgauge their 5x LHR to top gauge before starting a LGW.

Wasn't that also their second and very short lived attempt at CPH as well?

My (completely uneducated) next picks for long haul resumptions would be DUB (low competition), ADL (can do on just a 333 so why not) and SEA (contrarian but strong connectivity through AS who has intercontinental aspirations and not everyone is willing to fly AA). Much as I would like IAD to come back, I don't see it. Outside of that, I would think they would want to shore up their existing ports and get their Aria roll out sorted.

considering cathay has really good frequencies to almost pretty much every big and important airport starting from next summer, I think the future routes would be more ambitious and interesting, underserved markets. though aircraft shortage is a big problem, as I'm sure cathay would use almost all its a350s and b77W next summer, so realistically only A330 range things could be added, I think until B777X/ or cathays future long range plane order arrives.

cathay might do more middle east/ Africa connections (e.g. JED, CPT) maybe as the government wants it, there is demand from mainland china/ SE Asia, and its rather unserved, most east asian carriers barely fly to these places. i also believe more mainland china routes would be coming soon- and more increased frequencies to pretty much anywhere.

in the europe/ NA side, CPH, DUB, LGW is unlikely as loads weren't that good before, maybe things like BHX, ATH, LAS, or even MIA could start. all which have potential i believe.

Although many South Africans have cried out for it I recall seeing that loads to CPT were never good. JED could happen but maybe most likely as the result of a big government push. The ambitious African routes that I would consider would be something like Cairo, Lagos, maybe Nairobi.

I agree there's probably potential and a likelihood of a lot more mainland routes.

Helsinki?
 

Is there any reason HEL is never mentioned for E.European connections? For both VIE and WAW you are relying on Star Alliance connections (LH and LO) whilst from HEL you have One World's AY.

Tmk, the only countries/regions that have flights to more Mainland China destinations than Hungary are Hong Kong, Taiwan, Japan, and South Korea. This has nothing whatsoever to do with connectivity.

I think there could be some extra room for long-haul flights based on the current A350/B777 fleet.

The current size of long-haul fleet is still comparable to that of 2018. Currently it consists of 30 A359+18 A35K + 34 B77W=82; back to 2018 it was 22 A359 + 8 A35K + 52 B77W=82.

When comparing long-haul destinations and frequency, North America and Australia have nearly reached the same levels as in 2018, but Europe still lags behind a lot. I think we could see more long-haul flight additions even before the delivery of B779 in 2026 summer.

For that to happen, methinks the Chinese airlines would need to pull back in Europe a little, perhaps by reallocating resources to North America if/when they are permitted to do so.

I actually meant to type VIE there not sure why I said WAW but I get your point.

HEL is a bit out of the way. I lost track of whether CX overflies Russia. All my recent flights to Europe went over Turkey so I want to say no? If thats the case, the leg to HEL/VIE/WAW is about same with HEL maybe even a little longer and then you have to fly back down which is probably at least an extra hour versus the equivalent from VIE depending on where you are going. AY doesn't have a choice given its their hub. On the flip side, HEL is a great airport to connect in though.

They overfly Russia to/from BOS, YYZ, JFK, and sometimes ORD. TMK, HK-Europe is a little different though because there are lots of places they want (or need) to avoid.

But AY is already flying HKG-HEL daily. Is there a demand for CX to add a flight?

I will say that I wanted to take the HKG-HEL flight last year but the time and price weren't ideal for me and wound up connecting to AY in Doha instead. But not sure there are enough people like me in that situation to warrant a whole CX flight!

There is definitely some slack in the different fleet components as utilization of particularly the A333 and B77W fleets has some room for growth, but as I understand from inside the company, the bottleneck remains crew, in particular cockpit crew.