Cathay Pacific / Cathay Dragon Fleet, Route and Information Guide, Discussion Thread
 

Hello all! This new thread is created to discuss info regarding our document: Cathay Pacific / Cathay Dragon Fleet, Route and Configuration Guide. As regulars know, this doc regards CX / KA's fleet configs, routes, deployment, refurbishment, livery, cabin seats, window placement, WiFi, and much more. It might or might not be appropriate to consolidate the 777 WiFi thread in here; I'll leave that to the mods. This also might be better in a Wiki.

What is the purpose of this document?
This doc is everybody's. Its purpose is provide accurate information for CX / KA frequent (or first-time!) fliers; people planning CX / KA flights, preparing to fly CX / KA, or who work at CX / KA. A handy guide for those interested to know what metal flies where, what seats on what routes, to make thoughtful decisions from "a" to "z": from booking tickets, to selecting seats, to wondering whether the plane refueling outside taking them to LHR shortly has WiFi.

What's this thread for?
We welcome and desire information to add to our collective knowledge about crucial CX / KA elements. But quality info is crucial! Please don't post enthusiast / aviation fan-type speculation, or any speculation at all.This thread is born of a desire for accuracy; other editors and I have undone hours of spreadsheet edits due to erroneous info in the Fleet Information thread. For the lively community of enthusiasts, kindly respect this thread as a respite from speculation. Inaccurate information wastes editor time, and degrades the thread/document's usefulness for flight needs. A few editors stopped engaging our document due to crazy bad information, and disengagement is negative for frequent fliers! We're all a community and hopefully by having two separate threads (this one for accuracy, the Fleet Information thread for more speculation, etc.) we can resolve it.

Ground Rules
Here are some ground rules. If you're repeating non-official sources, please think twice. We understand some non-official sources are credible; but many aren't. If you're speculating entirely (aka, you see a CX plane going to Xiamen on FR24, or your Xiamen friend tells you a refurb is happening, etc.), do not post. We prefer waiting until 100% confirmed with own eyes, or via internal CX sources. If you have other ground rule suggestions I can edit this later or mods can, we'll add them.

PLEASE POST OFTEN:
*Information you've seen with your own eyes
*Information based on planes you (not others) have actually flown on
*Information you know due to being "part of the Cathay Pacific family" ;). (special thanks those of you, we are appreciative for your contributions!)
*Information obtained from credible news sources, websites, official schedules, press releases, etc you read. (cathaypacific.com, Leeham, SCMP, boeing.com, airbus.com, airport websites, local outport newspapers, routesonlines.com, etc.)

Please, REFRAIN FROM POSTING:
*Information gleaned from aviation websites, fan websites, Twitter, Instagram, WeChat, YouTube, or similar, unless it 100% proves point being made.
*Information gleaned from any other source that isn't your own experience on board, seeing with your own eyes in person, etc., unless 100% sure info is correct.

Please do NOT POST:
*General fanboy / aircraft enthusiast questions and speculations about livery, retirement & conversion schedules, leases, orders, which plane CX should or shouldn't buy or fly somewhere, etc.
*Information gleaned from FR24, FlightAware, etc. where your conclusion is speculative.
*Speculation of any type.

This is really a top notch forum. However, these types of broad threads inevitably seem to attract a very enthusiastic and diverse group of interests. As a result, some decorum has been lost in other "fleet info" type threads, mostly as a result of inaccurate information but other reasons too. Let's try to keep this one above board so it survives the test of time...and the mod's need to censor.

Final notes
*This document is publicly viewable. But if you're signed into Google, it may prompt you to request access...you can cancel/ignore this message and still view. I get 1-2 requests daily for editing access, which I think results from this Google bug.
*The document is edited by 10 dedicated forum regulars. If you would like to be an editor, please PM me via FT! For reasonable people who have contributed (doesn't have to be a lot) to this forum, we welcome you with open arms. But we prefer to get to know you in the forum before accepting you as an editor.
*Reposted here, same as top: Cathay Pacific / Cathay Dragon Fleet, Route and Configuration Guide

Thanks to everyone who contributes, both elsewhere, here, and as an editor of the document. And also thanks to our mod who politely gave the green light for this thread.

CPT, CHC (and CPH), done?
 

1.) CPH is cancelled right? We removed it from the sheet a while ago, but double checking.

2.) CHC.. we still have it in the sheet as seasonal, but it is removed from CX's inflight magazine / route network thing. Thoughts? Seems cancelled?

3.) CPT..same as CHC, gone from CX's inflight magazine / route network thing.

The CX magazine seems fairly reliable no? Anyone know?

As a side note, there sure seems to be a bang when new routes are announced, and a whimper when they get canned. (CX also seems to have it in for destinations that start with "C")

The magazine is reliable I believe. Current July edition is showing Komatsu as the only seasonal. As to whether CHC and CPT are permanent removals or seasonal removals I'm not sure. CX did say around the time of the current CEO's appointment/strategy repurposing that going forward they would be more agile and opportunistic with routes. I expect this will result in routes continuing to come, go and possibly reappear more than might have in the past.

On the "C" destinations, I flew CNS-HKG recently on a weekend. A very limited sample size clearly, but healthy loads in Y and PEY, less so in J. Quite a good portion of pax had come through on the BNE leg. Very sad (but understandable) that this route can't be sustained. It really does offer a big advantage over backtracking south to BNE, SYD or MEL to get into NE Asia or beyond. There's a lot of gratitude locally to CX for hanging in there so long operating the route and some anger with the local authorities for not "doing more" to incentivise CX to stay (but hard to know what they could realistically do if yields are fundamentally bad).

They are still selling HKG-CHC roundtrips for about 4000HKD and HKG-CPT for about 10000HKD from November. So I assume they still are planning to fly those routes. Probably seasonal routes in the magazine just mean routes that are currently flown but not in the coming season...

Not subsidizing China Southern and HK Airlines to begin service using CX's own (very high) landing and terminal fees would have been a good start.

I've seen several reports in the new that CPT is here to stay, but as seasonal beginning in Nov 2019.

Apologies for being absent from the board for a while...things have been "busy" lately.

I would like to welcome our new CX Google Doc editor, cmiller11101! For others, if you'd like to join as an editor, please send me a a private message here on FT instead of asking for access via the doc. (Although we'd like to see you post in the regular forum for a bit before jumping right in as an editor.)

I spent about 20 minutes today cleaning up some errors I noticed in the grid, and I've also noticed some aircraft flying to destinations we didn't have listed - particularly 35Ks seem to fly or at least, swap in on certain dates to places like BCN which I thought were only A359. I'm sure there are some other issues. And does anyone know if we have the WiFi properly updated based on winnipegrev's latest information?

Link is at the top of this thread, and reposted here: Cathay Pacific / Cathay Dragon Fleet, Route and Information Guide

AMS seems to be 35K daily.

Australasia will be having many changes for the northern winter:
AKL will go double daily 35K
MEL will have one 35K
PER will have one 35K
SYD will have one 359

B-HLA, one of their oldest A330s, exits the fleet today. It will left HKG at 0300 as KA3490 for TEV in Spain via CTU (Chengdu).

Changes made. There were a number of historical items that had gotten stale. Updated:

Change (previous)
*AMS daily 35K (mixed 35G/35K)
*CMB down to 3x weekly (daily, mixed service 33E / 77GK)
*DEL flights serviced by both 33E and 77K (just 33E)
*IAD back to 35K (35G)
*Oz/NZ routes getting 35K in winter: AKL going 2x daily, MEL, PER (35G / 77K)
*SYD swapping 33E / 77K / 35G around in HK winter

Added
*CDG 2 extra weekly frequencies and new flight, CX273/274

General cleanup.

I'm sure there are other mistakes / omissions / etc., if you see anything flag it!

Further edits:

*MAD is mixed aircraft 35J / 35G
*BCN is mixed aircraft 35J / 35G

Got an update from another FT member, B-KPV is 77A now with Wi-fi enabled. (he/she sent the message to me from on board...). Sheet has been updated.

We have an upcoming reservation from HKG-SGN- HKG in Dec / Jan on CX721 / CX764. During the time of booking there were only 2x A330 flights operating this sector which was in line with what I saw on the fleet config/ route details google doc.

While I was doing my routine seat assignment checks for all my reservations, I noticed that CX764 is now B777-300 ER (not sure if its a 77G or 77K) on 5 Jan. Seat map brings up 40x J lie flat seats in total.
I tried making a dummy booking on CX website and I also noticed a 35G aircraft operating this sector on some days in Jan & combination of A330, B777 and 35G on some days (3x services) ?

Also, we are now in seats 20D and 20G on the 777 - all the other middle row seats are taken. These are bassinet seats and close to the toilets. Just how bad are they ?

I was able to open the link at the top of this thread, but the link in this post does not seem to work.
... or I've got some oddball bug on my system (?).

Thanks... that doc is a great resource!

GC