Cathay Pacific has just announced its first new route to the United States since before the pandemic, and it’ll be the carrier’s longest route yet.
Cathay Pacific adds Hong Kong to Dallas route
As of April 24, 2025, Cathay Pacific will launch 4x weekly flights between Hong Kong (HKG) and Dallas Fort Worth (DFW). The route will operate on Mondays, Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Saturdays, with the following schedule:
CX898 Hong Kong to Dallas departing 4:05PM arriving 5:55PM
CX897 Dallas to Hong Kong departing 11:55PM arriving 5:05AM (+2 days)
The 8,123-mile flight is blocked at 14hr50min eastbound and 16hr10min westbound. Cathay Pacific will use an Airbus A350-1000 for the route, which is nowadays the carrier’s flagship aircraft. This 334-seat jet is in a three class layout, with 46 business class seats, 32 premium economy seats, and 256 economy seats.
This will be Cathay Pacific’s furthest route, just barely beating out the 8,072-mile flight to New York (JFK). Dallas will be Cathay Pacific’s first major gateway in the southern part of the United States.
Cathay Pacific currently operates a total of 88 weekly flights to the Americas, to seven destinations, including Boston (BOS), Chicago (ORD), Los Angeles (LAX), New York (JFK), San Francisco (SFO), Toronto (YYZ), and Vancouver (YVR).
By the spring of 2025, Cathay Pacific will operate 108 weekly flights to the Americas, with 3x daily flights to Los Angeles, New York, and San Francisco, 2x daily flights to Vancouver, 13x weekly flights to Toronto, daily flights to Boston and Chicago, and 4x weekly flights to Dallas.
My take on Cathay Pacific adding Dallas service
Cathay Pacific adding flights to Dallas makes perfect sense. Dallas is a major market in and of itself, and on top of that, it’s a major American hub. Since Cathay Pacific and American both belong to oneworld, there will be plenty of connectivity opportunities.
There are some destinations in the central and southern part of the United States that can easily be served from Dallas, but not from Cathay Pacific’s other gateways, so this opens up lots of one-stop connectivity.
The interesting backstory here is that American flew the Dallas to Hong Kong route starting in 2014, through the start of the pandemic. American ultimately abandoned Hong Kong, and has basically given up on competing in Asia, with the exception of Tokyo service, in conjunction with joint venture partner Japan Airlines.
It’s clear that there wasn’t enough demand in the Hong Kong to Dallas market for both airlines, and with it being clear that American doesn’t plan to resume this route, Cathay Pacific is now going for it.
For what it’s worth, while American and Cathay Pacific have a codeshare agreement and belong to the same alliance, they don’t have a joint venture. This means that the airlines can’t coordinate their schedules, meaning that Cathay Pacific’s new route isn’t some sort of joint decision (at least officially).
What I find most noteworthy is that Cathay Pacific used to fly to Seattle (SEA) and Washington (IAD), but suspended those routes around the pandemic. So rather than resuming those routes, the airline is instead adding service to a new airport. That’s logical enough, when you look at the overall evolution of capacity and demand, plus Cathay Pacific’s limited aircraft availability, especially with Boeing 777X delays.
Bottom line
As of April 2025, Cathay Pacific will launch a new 4x weekly service between Hong Kong and Dallas. This will be Cathay Pacific’s first time flying to Dallas, though it’s a route that American used to fly, but ultimately terminated. This seems like a logical addition for the carrier, given the size of the Dallas market, plus connectivity. However, it’s probably not great news in terms of the prospect of Seattle or Washington flights returning.
What do you make of Cathay Pacific adding flights to Dallas?
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