Cathay Pacific - Hong Kong's Flag Carrier

[ChinaboyUSA]

Why the Airbus 380 doesn't start its first commercial flight from Hong Kong to Sydney instead of S'pore to Sydney?

[hkskyline]

Originally Posted by ChinaboyUSA

Why the Airbus 380 doesn't start its first commercial flight from Hong Kong to Sydney instead of S'pore to Sydney?

Cathay has not ordered any A380 planes. Airbus has been trying very hard to court Chinese customers but without much success so far. That's why they sent the plane to Hong Kong for the low-fly across Victoria Harbour in a publicity stunt this week.

[hkskyline]

DRAGONAIR TO JOIN oneworld ALLIANCE ON NOVEMBER 1
3 September 2007
Press Release

Dragonair today announced that it will become a member of oneworld®, the leading quality global airline alliance, on November 1 this year, offering the alliance's full range of services and benefits to its customers and at the same time greatly enhancing oneworld's coverage in Mainland China.

"Becoming a member of oneworld is an exciting development for Dragonair and is the latest benefit to result from our becoming part of the Cathay Pacific Group," said Chief Executive Officer Kenny Tang. "We are pleased that oneworld customers will be able to connect through Hong Kong to our extensive network of destinations in Mainland China and to the increasing number of business and leisure destinations we serve in the region."

oneworld Managing Partner John McCulloch added: "Since its launch eight years ago, oneworld has been the only alliance with a member from greater China, in our Hong Kong-based founder member Cathay Pacific. The addition of Dragonair means that oneworld will maintain its lead in this important, fast-growing region. With our combination of Dragonair, Cathay Pacific and the award-winning Hong Kong hub, it means that oneworld will offer the best quality airline service for travel to or from the whole of China."

Twelve of Dragonair's Mainland China destinations - Changsha, Chengdu, Chongqing, Fuzhou, Guilin, Haikou, Kunming, Nanjing, Ningbo, Sanya, Shenyang and Wuhan - will be new to the oneworld network, taking the number of Mainland China destinations served by the alliance to 22.

Three other Dragonair regional destinations will be additions to oneworld's existing network - Kota Kinabalu in Malaysia, Phuket in Thailand and Phnom Penh in Cambodia, with the latter country being served by oneworld for the first time. With Dragonair's joining oneworld, the alliance's network will cover more than 700 destinations in almost 150 countries and territories.

Joining the alliance will mean Dragonair's frequent flyers can earn and redeem mileage awards on all oneworld member airlines, while top-tier members will have access to 500 airport lounges worldwide. At the same time, members of other oneworld airlines' frequent flyer programmes will be able to earn and redeem awards and receive all other oneworld benefits when flying on Dragonair. The airline's network will also be covered by oneworld's extensive range of alliance fares.

Dragonair's sister airline Cathay Pacific is one of the founding members of the 10-strong oneworld alliance. Full members include American Airlines, British Airways, Cathay Pacific, Finnair, Iberia, LAN, Qantas, Japan Airlines, Malev Hungarian Airlines and Royal Jordanian Airlines. Around 20 other carriers are affiliate members.

oneworld, the only alliance to enable passengers to fly throughout its network on any combination of carriers using electronic tickets, was voted the World's Leading Airline Alliance for the fourth year running in the 2006 World Travel Awards.

Its member airlines operate 9,500 departures a day with a combined fleet of some 2,500 aircraft, carrying 320 million passengers and earning total revenues of US$90 million in 2006. It is the only airline alliance with a truly global network, as the only grouping with any member airlines in the Americas south of Mexico, in the Middle East and in Australia.

[Monkey]

^ Great news. Oneworld will become the only alliance with a world class Chinese airline and hub offering extensive connections to mainland China and SE Asia.

[FM 2258]

I would love to see Cathay with a large fleet of A380's, hopefully A380-900's if Airbus will get on the ball with those.

[yyzhyd]

First of Cathay's new Boeing 777-300ERs can be seen here... http://www.microvoltradio.com/images/kpae1898.jpg

IIRC she's to be inaugurated on the HKG-JFK route later this year.

[hkskyline]

Cathay Pacific August Passengers Up 4.9% On Yr To 2.12 Mln
13 September 2007

HONG KONG (Dow Jones)-- Cathay Pacific Airways Ltd. (0293.HK) said Thursday it carried 4.9% more passengers in August than it did in the same month last year, boosted by strong demand, particularly for first and business class seats.

The Hong Kong-based carrier and its unit, Hong Kong Dragon Airlines Ltd., carried 2.12 million passengers during the month. Cargo traffic rose 12% from a year earlier to 142,597 metric tons.

In the first eight months of this year, Cathay Pacific and Dragonair carried 15.18 million passengers, up 2% from a year earlier. Cargo tonnage rose 1.7% to 1.03 million metric tons. It didn't provide year-earlier figures.

[Canadian74]

Originally Posted by ChinaboyUSA

Why the Airbus 380 doesn't start its first commercial flight from Hong Kong to Sydney instead of S'pore to Sydney?

Huh? Why in the world would SIA fly from HKG ?!

[Canadian74]

Anyone heard rumours about Cathay going double daily to YYZ and negotiating YYC too?

[hkskyline]

Originally Posted by Canadian74

Anyone heard rumours about Cathay going double daily to YYZ and negotiating YYC too?

Canada's airport fees too high: Cathay
8 November 2006
Calgary Herald

Sky-high airport fees are discouraging foreign carriers from flying to Canada and could force others to scrap routes entirely in favour of destinations in the United States, an executive with Cathay Pacific Airways warned Tuesday.

Cathay Pacific -- Hong Kong's flagship airline -- wants to add a third daily flight between its Asian hub and Vancouver -- or possibly even launch service to Calgary.

But it's difficult to justify expanding in Canada, argues vice-president Philippe Lacamp, because of the Byzantine rent structure Ottawa has imposed on the nation's airports.

"There is a reason we fly three times a day into Los Angeles and not Vancouver," he said. "Canadian airports are generally more expensive than in the U.S. and Canada is going to lose out economically because of it."

The federal government collects rent from Canada's airports, spun off to not-for-profit authorities in the early 1990s. Much of that cost is paid by airlines in the form of landing fees and terminal charges for the use of gates and check-in counters.

But Lacamp, who oversees Cathay Pacific's operations in Canada, told an audience at the Calgary Chamber of Commerce that Ottawa's rent structure is archaic, and unless it is overhauled, runs the risk of alienating foreign carriers.

It's a message he delivered to the House of Commons Standing Committee on Transport last year.

"I'm not saying we want to come in for free -- absolutely not -- but we want to pay only for what we use," he said in an interview.

"It's a business concern -- we're not going to fly somewhere that doesn't make us money."

Much of Lacamp's ire is directed at Toronto's Pearson International Airport, bitterly referred to by some critics as the "Taj Mahal" after an extravagant renovation project that included millions of dollars in artwork alone. Today, it is the single-most expensive airport in the world to fly into and rising costs have led some airlines, including Israeli carrier El Al, to scale back its service to the city.

Airports have long lobbied the government to eliminate rent obligations, arguing it puts them at a disadvantage when it comes to wooing international carries. In the case of Calgary International Airport, officials say

Ottawa has collected more than twice the value of the facility since it was spun off 15 years ago.

"We're looking at numbers in excess of $1 billion over the life of the lease we've got," said Julien DeSchutter, the airport's vice-president of marketing. "We consider it a lease in perpetuity."

DeSchutter says the airport has tried to keep the costs passed on to airlines at a minimum, and wherever possible consults carriers to gauge the kinds of services they are interested in paying for.

Still, he fears that without rent reform, foreign companies like Cathay Pacific, British Airways or Japan Airlines will see little economic incentive to do business in Canada if prices to use airports continue to outpace those of other countries.

"Let's be realistic. If we're paying $20 million a year in rent, that's

$20 million we've got to find somewhere and generally speaking the carriers have to pay for it," said DeSchutter.

"Anything that increases your costs definitely does not help (in attracting airlines to Calgary). That's a big part of the reason this rent has to disappear."

[yyzhyd]

Originally Posted by hkskyline

Canada's airport fees too high: Cathay
8 November 2006
Calgary Herald

Sky-high airport fees are discouraging foreign carriers from flying to Canada and could force others to scrap routes entirely in favour of destinations in the United States, an executive with Cathay Pacific Airways warned Tuesday.

Cathay Pacific -- Hong Kong's flagship airline -- wants to add a third daily flight between its Asian hub and Vancouver -- or possibly even launch service to Calgary.

But it's difficult to justify expanding in Canada, argues vice-president Philippe Lacamp, because of the Byzantine rent structure Ottawa has imposed on the nation's airports.

"There is a reason we fly three times a day into Los Angeles and not Vancouver," he said. "Canadian airports are generally more expensive than in the U.S. and Canada is going to lose out economically because of it."

The federal government collects rent from Canada's airports, spun off to not-for-profit authorities in the early 1990s. Much of that cost is paid by airlines in the form of landing fees and terminal charges for the use of gates and check-in counters.

But Lacamp, who oversees Cathay Pacific's operations in Canada, told an audience at the Calgary Chamber of Commerce that Ottawa's rent structure is archaic, and unless it is overhauled, runs the risk of alienating foreign carriers.

It's a message he delivered to the House of Commons Standing Committee on Transport last year.

"I'm not saying we want to come in for free -- absolutely not -- but we want to pay only for what we use," he said in an interview.

"It's a business concern -- we're not going to fly somewhere that doesn't make us money."

Much of Lacamp's ire is directed at Toronto's Pearson International Airport, bitterly referred to by some critics as the "Taj Mahal" after an extravagant renovation project that included millions of dollars in artwork alone. Today, it is the single-most expensive airport in the world to fly into and rising costs have led some airlines, including Israeli carrier El Al, to scale back its service to the city.

Airports have long lobbied the government to eliminate rent obligations, arguing it puts them at a disadvantage when it comes to wooing international carries. In the case of Calgary International Airport, officials say

Ottawa has collected more than twice the value of the facility since it was spun off 15 years ago.

"We're looking at numbers in excess of $1 billion over the life of the lease we've got," said Julien DeSchutter, the airport's vice-president of marketing. "We consider it a lease in perpetuity."

DeSchutter says the airport has tried to keep the costs passed on to airlines at a minimum, and wherever possible consults carriers to gauge the kinds of services they are interested in paying for.

Still, he fears that without rent reform, foreign companies like Cathay Pacific, British Airways or Japan Airlines will see little economic incentive to do business in Canada if prices to use airports continue to outpace those of other countries.

"Let's be realistic. If we're paying $20 million a year in rent, that's

$20 million we've got to find somewhere and generally speaking the carriers have to pay for it," said DeSchutter.

"Anything that increases your costs definitely does not help (in attracting airlines to Calgary). That's a big part of the reason this rent has to disappear."

Yet, they're still going double daily to YYZ this winter
I think EVERYONE except the Feds agree on the lower rent for YYZ issue.

[hkskyline]

Originally Posted by yyzhyd

Yet, they're still going double daily to YYZ this winter
I think EVERYONE except the Feds agree on the lower rent for YYZ issue.

Expansion is not on the plate until the new 777 can be deployed on the JFK route, then the A340 can likely move to a Canadian route.

[yyzhyd]

Originally Posted by hkskyline

Expansion is not on the plate until the new 777 can be deployed on the JFK route, then the A340 can likely move to a Canadian route.

Exactly... and their new 77Ws are already uploaded into schedules for JFK.

[EricIsHim]

The first 777-300ER should be delivered to HK from Seattle on the 23rd this month. I guess it'll be in service very soon even before the JFK's flight.

How many 777-300ER has CX ordered? Anyone knows?

[yyzhyd]

Cathay currently has 23 B77Ws on order from Boeing.

12 ordered in 2005
+5 leased from ILFC
+2 ordered in 2006
+5 ordered in 2007

[EricIsHim]

Originally Posted by yyzhyd

Cathay currently has 23 B77Ws on order from Boeing.

12 ordered in 2005
+5 leased from ILFC
+2 ordered in 2006
+5 ordered in 2007

wow... the whole order is about one-fifth of the existing fleet in CX.
CX is really expanding rapidly in the next few years.

[vincent]

Originally Posted by EricIsHim

wow... the whole order is about one-fifth of the existing fleet in CX.
CX is really expanding rapidly in the next few years.

and that's not including options that CX haven't executed yet.

[vincent]

Originally Posted by EricIsHim

The first 777-300ER should be delivered to HK from Seattle on the 23rd this month. I guess it'll be in service very soon even before the JFK's flight.

How many 777-300ER has CX ordered? Anyone knows?

more like the end of the month.

[EricIsHim]

Originally Posted by vincent

and that's not including options that CX haven't executed yet.

what options?

[vincent]

Originally Posted by EricIsHim

what options?

airplane order options. There are four "level" for ordering airplanes, each with different terms and conditions.
1. Firm Order
2. Option
3. Purchase rights
4. MOU