Cathay Pacific

Cathay Pacific is the national air carrier of Hong Kong. It is the biggest airline of the country. Its main hub is Hong Kong International Airport. The airline operates a number of scheduled flights and cargo services, connecting more than 114 destinations across 36 countries worldwide.

Roy C. Farrell and Sydney H. de Kantzow founded Cathay Pacific on September 24th, 1946. The airline anticipates flying across the Pacific one day. It became the first airline in the world to have operated non-stop transpolar flight over the North Pole in 1998.

Swire Pacific and Air China are the major shareholders of Cathay Pacific.

The airline is one of the founding members of the OneWorld alliance. The Hong Kong-based carrier gets a Five-Star-Airline status.

Cathay is signed code-share agreement with a number of international airlines, including American Airlines, British Airways, Finnair, Japan Airlines and Qantas.

Along with Dragonair, Cathay operates more than 138, 000 flights, carrying nearly 25 million passengers and about 1.6 million tones of cargo and mail.

In addition, Cathay offers ‘Oneworld’ a travel programme to generate more value for customers, shareholders and employees.

Cathay makes an alliance of world’s three largest airlines with its Central Management team. Its name is Oneworld Management Company, based at Vancouver in British Columbia, Canada. The alliance membership depends on the frequent flyer programme.

American Airlines, British Airways, Canadian Airlines, Cathay Pacific and Qantas Airways together founded ‘OneWorld’ in 1999.

Cathay has bilateral relationships with Air China, Malaysia Airlines, Philippine Airlines, Aeroflot Russian International Airlines, Vietnam Airlines, and with the French rail operator SNCF as well.

Cathay awarded ‘Airline of the Year’ by Skytrax in 2009.