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?
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