Despite flying to Hong Kong for 30 years, Virgin Atlantic announced this week that it is pulling out of the special administrative region. While the European carrier is not interested in continuing its operations in Hong Kong, Cathay Pacific has affirmed that the Europe-Hong Kong market remains vital to its network. Simple Flying caught up with Cathay Pacific Head of Marketing and Sales Paul Johannes to hear more about this importance.

Across the continent

Cathay Pacific has a strong presence throughout Europe, operating in the likes of the United Kingdom, France, Germany, Italy, and the Netherlands. Even as far as Israel falls under Johannes' remit. Moreover, destinations have been making a comeback for the carrier, with cities such as Madrid and Milan recently returning to the route map.

Johannes explains that Cathay is well positioned with its flights and that it is slowly going to be adding into Europe in order to bring better connections and link customers to Hong Kong and through the hub. With quarantine requirements dropping, the airline is slowly gradually going to start boosting capacity from Europe to help open up opportunities as the continent is such a core market for the company.

As Johannes puts it:

“We've got, at the moment, nine destinations, sometimes 10 depending on the season, and these are strategic cities linking Europe into APAC and China.”

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Breaking it down

Both point-to-point and transit traffic remain crucial to Cathay’s operations. There is a strong demand for these segments in this next chapter.

“There is a certain market in Europe that flies to Hong Kong for family and friends, for tourism, or even business - there are a lot of corporate ties between Hong Kong and Europe, especially with the UK. Then we have a market that goes beyond Hong Kong, which is equally important, into places like China, Australia, Southeast Asia, North Asia. Also, everybody talks about the kangaroo route. That's very important for us as well because there are a lot of ties between Australia and Europe.”

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The recovery begins

A whopping 71.5 million passengers passed through Hong Kong in 2019, the year before the pandemic. The global health crisis saw minimal numbers, with just over 1.3 million passengers in 2021 and 1.7 million up until August this year. Thus, Cathay will be raring to meet pent-up demand now that stringent restrictions have been dropped.

With Virgin no longer flying to Hong Kong, there is an opportunity for Cathay to grab a larger slice of the pie in the market. Flying to both Manchester Airport and London Heathrow Airport, there is plenty of potential for Cathay, and its widebodies, in the UK and across Europe.

What are your thoughts about Cathay Pacific’s European network? What do you make of the overall plans of the airline? Let us know what you think of the carrier and its operations in the comment section.

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  Cathay Pacific

  IATA/ICAO Code:

  CX/CPA

  Airline Type:

  Full Service Carrier

  Hub(s):

  Hong Kong International Airport

  Year Founded:

  1946

  Alliance:

  oneworld

  CEO:

  Ronald Lam

  Country:

  China (Special Administrative Region)

  Region:

  Asia