A couple of days ago Cathay Pacific hinted that they’d be adding a few new destinations. They ran a beer related contest to encourage people to guess what the cities were, and there was further speculation that the cities started with the letters “B,” “C,” and “D.” My initial guesses were Brussels, Copenhagen, and Dublin. I later changed my “D” guess from Dublin to Dallas based on a supposed memo that went out, but it seems that may not have been accurate.
Cathay Pacific has now announced their three new routes. In 2018, Cathay Pacific will be adding three new European destinations — Brussels, Copenhagen, and Dublin.
The details of the new routes are as follows:
Hong Kong to Brussels as of March 27, 2018
The flight will be operated 4x weekly by an A350 with the following schedule:
CX339 Hong Kong to Brussels departing 12:35AM arriving 6:55AM [Tue, Thu, Sat, Sun]
CX338 Brussels to Hong Kong departing 1:10PM arriving 6:55AM (+1 day) [Tue, Thu, Sat, Sun]
Hong Kong to Copenhagen as of May 2, 2018
The flight will be operated 3x weekly by an A350 with the following schedule:
CX227 Hong Kong to Copenhagen departing 1:10AM arriving 6:30AM [Mon, Wed, Fri]
CX226 Copenhagen to Hong Kong departing 1:55PM arriving 6:35AM (+1 day) [Mon, Wed, Fri]
Note that this is only a seasonal service, and the service will be discontinued as of October 12, 2018.
Hong Kong to Dublin as of June 2, 2018
The flight will be operated 4x weekly by an A350 with the following schedule:
CX307 Hong Kong to Dublin departing 12:50AM arriving 6:45AM [Mon, Wed, Thu, Sat]
CX306 Dublin to Hong Kong departing 11:55AM arriving 7:05AM (+1 day) [Mon, Wed, Thu, Sat]
Cathay Pacific’s A350
As you can see, all of these routes will be operated by Cathay Pacific’s A350-900. The airline is taking delivery of 22 A350-900s — they already have 18, with another four to come. On top of that, they have 26 A350-1000s on order. This will really help them lower costs on longhaul flights.
Cathay’s A350s have a total of 280 seats, including 214 economy seats, 28 premium economy seats, and 38 business class seats. The business class seats on this plane are a slight update over their 777 business class. Unfortunately the planes don’t have first class, though on the plus side they do have Wi-Fi, which I appreciate on longhaul flights.
Award availability on Cathay Pacific’s new flights
All three of these new routes are now bookable, and it looks like they all have a good bit of award availability. I see three business class award seats available on just about every flight for these routes.
If you do want to redeem miles for these flights, the one-way business class award costs for travel from Europe to Hong Kong are as follows:
- Alaska Mileage Plan — 42,500 miles
- American AAdvantage — 75,000 miles
- British Airways Executive Club — 90,000 Avios plus carrier imposed surcharges
Bottom line
This is some significant expansion on the part of Cathay Pacific, and it’s always nice to see airlines expanding into new markets. This growth seems logical enough. Selfishly I would have loved to see some new North America service, but I guess that isn’t happening… for now.
What do you make of Cathay Pacific’s three new European destinations?
Hi everyone.
How about let say travelling from KUL to Paris/Zurich/Brussels/Amsterdam, do we need to separate this travel into two leg? Asia - Asia & Asia - Eur.
Thank you.
CX availability HKG-Europe has totally dried up over the last few months. Does anyone know why? I am looking to fly mid June on the weekend and can't find anything to FRA, ZRH, BRU, AMS. Not even with Asia Miles. Not sure what is happening at CX as I had redeemed HKG-Europe many times with Alaska Miles and am currently also booked on HKG-FRA during Christmas which was available with Alaska Miles (amazingly).
@Mark I'm from New Zealand, and I often use Alaska miles to fly return to HK from AKL on Cathay Pacific - a bargain at only 60,000 return. Got 5x return seats for the family in J in Dec/Jan for only $1680 NZD each before taxes/surcharges (based on buying miles at 50% bonus). I was amazed at the availability and so was the Alaska phone rep.
You can only book flights with CX via Alaska on phone, not on their website, but their call centre is great.
@RD:
Here you go: https://www.alaskaair.com/content/mileage-plan/use-miles/award-charts
Just select origin and destination regions.
@Mark -- you can only fly on the routes they post in the award chart. For some that's only from the USA, but most partnerships have some other options. You can book Europe only for example. They only seem to allow Asia to Europe on CX, it appears. Damn you can't beat 42,500 miles for
biz!https://www.alaskaair.com/content/mileage-plan/use-miles/award-charts
Ben I am never able to find CX awards on Alaska's website so was the 42,500 miles found on their website or did you call them to find the details? Thanks
This is the second post on this topic where James has showcased his great desperation to show a bunch of internet strangers that he is a Very Serious Beer Boy
What carrier imposed surcharges on BA Avios? Taxes seem to come to £40ish from CPH, and it's only 75,000 miles in business from there rather than the others.
@AdamR
I think you can't route N.America to Europe via Hong Kong on CX with AS miles. The award chart only shows CX redemption for N.America to Asia / Middle East / Aus NZ
@Mark-I think that is just Emirates that you need to start or stop in USA. I could be wrong.
Is there anyway to search for this award travel that forces routing through HKG while using AS Mileage Plan miles? We're hoping to book a trip to Berlin (possibly via Brussels) next fall but absolutely loathe BA's Club World (but don't mind their F) and the ridiculously inappropriate surcharges foisted upon award tickets via London. How would one search LAX-BRU but force a stopover or connection in HKG? We can't search CX award space on...
Is there anyway to search for this award travel that forces routing through HKG while using AS Mileage Plan miles? We're hoping to book a trip to Berlin (possibly via Brussels) next fall but absolutely loathe BA's Club World (but don't mind their F) and the ridiculously inappropriate surcharges foisted upon award tickets via London. How would one search LAX-BRU but force a stopover or connection in HKG? We can't search CX award space on the Alaska website and searching via BA's or AA's sites would almost certainly never return routing via HKG.
Wow, surprised about Dublin, given they'll be facing competition from ME3 for Far East business and presumably eating into the connecting flow on their high frequency London services to a degree ...
I guess Aer Lingus will offer some regional connectivity from there though.
Oh well!!! I was sure the C was for Camden, NJ.
Lol. Who in this earth would associate a city(ies) in USA with beer? Dallas? Hahahahaha...
The routes are decent adds - DUB for EI's eventual entrance into oneworld, BRU for the nascent partnership with LH group. As for CPH, SAS has served it previously, abandoned it for a while, then relaunched as ARN-HKG instead.
When LH upped their MUC-HKG miraculously to A380, I was guessing it was for a 2-fold : (1) give FRA airport a warning shot about being too friendly to Ryanair, and (2) give CX a warning...
The routes are decent adds - DUB for EI's eventual entrance into oneworld, BRU for the nascent partnership with LH group. As for CPH, SAS has served it previously, abandoned it for a while, then relaunched as ARN-HKG instead.
When LH upped their MUC-HKG miraculously to A380, I was guessing it was for a 2-fold : (1) give FRA airport a warning shot about being too friendly to Ryanair, and (2) give CX a warning shot not to touch their golden goose.
It seemed to have worked - despite constant rumors on how A359 will enable CX on HKG-MUC, what ended up happening is the non-announcement of MUC and cancellation of DUS (i'm guessing it's a combination of AB's collapse, lack of significant business ties, lacking of tourism-attractiveness of Rhine-Ruhr relative to other parts of Europe, and staying on good terms with LH).
@Mark: You thought wrong.
They have great introductory economy and premium economy fares as well. Economy is running at ~$585 roundtrip from Hong Kong and premium economy is running at ~$1380 roundtrip for all three routes. Even business class is cheaper than some of their other European routes, at ~$4400 roundtrip (usually they're at the ~$4850 mark).
I thought one couldnt use Alaska for flights not starting or ending in the US so I am curious how you came upon the 42500 alaska miles for the routes?
There was speculation that CX would discontinue DUS, PEK and DPS. Any word on that?