ernestnywang

CX had a JV with VN on the HAN route and last served HAN itself in 2002. Afterwards, CX only code-shared on VN metals. KA then launched it in 2008. No transfer was involved.
CX only ever served FUK via TPE. There were never non-stop services. KA inaugurated non-stop FUK services in Oct. 2007. CX then dropped the TPE-FUK flight in Oct. 2017, exactly 10 years after. KA added non-stop frequency then, but it wasn't a direct transfer of service à la KUL, as TPE-FUK was never restored.
KHH was indeed transferred from CX to KA in Jul. 1996. However, I wouldn't call that "a few years ago."

Unionruler

And yet SQ never bothered to fly mainline there, only MI narrowbodies.

brunos

I am not sure what is your point. KA (the equivalent of MI) also used a lot of narrowbodies to China and was the major operator of China flights for the CX group. But HKG was a more important business destinationf for China than SIN.
In these troubled times, I find it fascinating to look at routes history. Thank you ernestnywang for providing these details. Interesting to see that CX started FUK with an electra ac in 1965:
https://news.cathaypacific.com/catha...ing-to-fukuoka

ernestnywang

You may find http://downloads.cathaypacific.com/c...er_flights.pdf of your interest.

SilverChris

Interesting find!

OT: Surprised to learn that some major destinations (e.g. LON, DEL, the US) were launched relatively late.

Nicc HK

Sadly not, as with many things politics played a role. Some background from my understanding

UK - BA fought tooth and nail to keep CX from going west of the Gulf. At the time BA owned a 20% stake in CX as a result of CX's takeover of Hong Kong Airways in 1959. CX finally achieved their goal when it was decided to liberalise the route and rights were given to Laker Airways who never flew the route which got transferred to BCAL and CX naturally wanted in on the route having just bought 747-200s partly to fly to London. It was also not long after CX was 'encouraged' into buying Rolls-Royce powered Tristars in 1975
DEL - straight politics on the Indian side plus BA had rights which they used 2 or 3 times a week. If I recall a day flight leaving HK late morning during the late 80s and 90s. This was also when HK's route agreements were tied in with the UK. HK was carved out of UK agreements in 1995.
US - Lacked the equipment to fly non-stop until the 744 came along and also did not have the requisite route authorities from the only potential 2 transit points available at the time, Japan and South Korea

ernestnywang

Do you know when did BA divest their CX shares? I remember range also being an issue - The original LGW flights needed to stop at BAH.

Nicc HK

John King the BA Chairman had to clean up BA and prepare it for privitisation and selling CX shares was going to bring in badly needed money. He became Chairman late 1981 so probably 1982 or 1983 for the CX share sale. These shares were then used by Swires to list on the HKSE in 1986. Biggest IPO to date.

On range, UK-HK flights had no overfly rights for China, so range was a huge issue.

Bahrain worked for 2 reasons:

1. Most liberal of the Gulf states for transit
2. At the time Bahrain was the Gulf's financial centre

Interestingly I do not think BA used Bahrain as a transit point for HK in the modern era, though highly likely to be proven wrong here.

SW7London

Pretty sure BA used Muscat from flights to/from the far east in the 1980s, if memories of what my parents and grandparents told me are correct!

QF used Bahrain.

Nicc HK

I was intrigued so looked up departed flights for transits from the Far East via the Gulf excluding BA

1983 Into Gatwick,

Bahrain CX
Dubai BCAL and Air Lanka

1983 Into Heathrow,

Abu Dhabi SQ, JL
Bahrain QF
Dubai SQ (also PA & PIA)

Could not find Thai, PR or Garuda

boybi

where can one find such information about past flights?

Nicc HK

I used www.departedflights.com though there seems to be some hidden pages on the site which are not listed in the links.

boybi

The site is only for historic flights.

Is there a site where I can see the flights for a particular day 10-20yrs ago?

I am trying to look for flights I took since when I was still a child and cannot remember the airline I flew anymore.

MSPeconomist

I'm guessing that pulling HK out of UK agreements in 1995 might have been a preliminary step as the mid 1997 handover approached. In fact, I would have expected bigger route changes in this time period than have been reported so far in this thread. OTOH, by 2008 CX mainline had surprisingly few routes/frequencies to mainland Chinese cities beyond PEK and PVG.

ernestnywang

I have the entire collection of CX/KA timetables from winter 2005 to spring 2013 (last printed issue). Feel free to let me know if some of the flights you are looking for are covered by my collection.

In the late 1980s, CX had flights to PEK and SHA. Mainland China wasn't really opened up then, and I would imagine HK businesspeople who wanted to go to Guangdong province would opt for ground transportation. In 1990, Swire and CX became major shareholders of KA (had around 30~40% of shares, later reduced to about 25%), and as part of the deal, CX gave the traffic rights of all Mainland Chinese routes to KA. It was also the policy of HK government in the 1990s and the early 2000s (both colonial and SAR) to assign one HK airline per route. The sovereignty handover could have been part of the reason why CX gave up Mainland traffic rights in exchange for shares in KA, but honestly it benefited CX a lot more, as CX essentially had the control over the entire HK aviation market by becoming a major shareholder of the only other HK carrier. CX only relaunched PEK in 2003, launched XMN in 2005 (then transferred the morning pair back to KA in 2008), and later PVG in 2006 (by then KA was already merged into CX, but CX's application for PVG traffic right started before the merger was closed).