If you’re not interested in speculation then skip this post and just wait a couple of days until the announcement is official. If you do like to speculate, comment below with what you think, so you’ll have bragging rights if your prediction is correct. 😉
Cathay Pacific sure knows how to get us interested in their new routes. They’ll be announcing a few new routes in the coming days, and they’ve made a bit of a game of it. As I posted about yesterday, they’re saying that their next destinations are all beer related, and have the following video encouraging us to guess their new routes based on the color of beer:
https://www.facebook.com/cathaypacificHK/videos/1174415822702119/
That certainly made some cities spring to mind. There were some further clues in the “CX Secrets” Facebook group, which is an unofficial Cathay Pacific employee group that posts a lot of rumors (many of which turn out to be true):
According to rumors within 8/F, there will at least be 3 new ports in 2018. Bxxxxxxx, Cxxxxxxxxx and Dxxxxx. We will also be closing 3 ports: 1 in China, 1 in SE Asia and 1 in Europe.
Based on that, Brussels, Copenhagen, and Dublin were the first cities that came to mind.
But there’s speculation that Dublin might not get a Cathay Pacific flight after all. A memo that has been circulating suggests that Cathay Pacific will add flights to Brussels, Copenhagen, and Dallas. Furthermore, they’ll cut flights to Dusseldorf, and Bali and Beijing flights will completely be transferred to Cathay Dragon, their subsidiary.
While many suggest the memo is authentic, I can’t personally confirm that, so I tried to look for other clues. Dallas has some breweries, but in the grand scheme of things I wouldn’t say it’s one of the world’s great beer cities. Then again, the whole beer related thing seems like a stretch to begin with.
Dublin is best known for Guinness, which is a really dark beer. Maybe my interpretation is wrong here, but I don’t see any beer that looks dark enough to be Guinness. Now, I know there are other types of beer in Dublin, and I also know that this whole beer marketing campaign is probably a bit of a stretch, but if you’re going to make people guess based on the color of beer, you’d think you’d show a really dark beer for Dublin.
Forgetting about the contest for a second, it just seems to me like it would be a bit odd if all of Cathay Pacific’s new routes were to Europe.
So if it weren’t for the beer clues and if I just knew they’d start service to a city starting with “D,” I would have guessed Dallas. Yes, American flies from Dallas to Hong Kong (they launched the route in 2014), though the two airlines don’t have a joint venture, so the route could still make sense in terms of connecting traffic. Yes, this is a really long route, but Cathay Pacific should be able to operate it with their A350s, should they want to.
I’m torn here, but I really wouldn’t be surprised to see the new destination be Dallas. If I had to guess, I’d give Dallas 60% odds and Dublin 40% odds. There’s a good chance the “CX Secrets” rumor is based on the supposed memo going around, in which case I suspect the “D” is for Dallas. Then again, both of these rumors could be wrong, and there may not even be a “D” city involved here.
What do you guys think — is Cathay Pacific about to announce service to Dallas, Dublin, or neither?
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