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Cathay Pacific used Twitter the other day to tease us about a possible new route to the US and now the airline has revealed exactly what that new route will be.
A number of the routes included in the teaser seemed unlikely (I never thought Salt Lake City, Austin or Denver were in the running) but a number were also plausible (Honolulu, Seattle & Dallas) so it wasn’t automatically obvious where Cathay planned to fly next.
It turns out that the answer in Seattle and I have to admit to being a little surprised.
First the route news….
Cathay Pacific plans to commence non-stop service between Hong Kong and Seattle from 31 March 2019.
The route will be operated 4x/week on the following schedule:
CX858 HKG 23:55 – 21:00 SEA (Tue, Thu, Sat & Sun)
CX857 SEA 01:05 – 05:25+1 day HKG (Mon, Wed, Fri & Sun)
Cathay Pacific will operate this route using its Airbus A350-900 Aircraft (Business Class reviewed here) which offers the following cabin configuration:
- 38 Business Class seats
- 28 Premium Economy seats
- 214 Economy Class seats
The Business Class cabin is set out in a 1-2-1 layout (all seats have direct aisle access) and the seats are very similar to the ones you’ll find on American Airlines 777-300ER aircraft.
Thoughts
I’m going to call it now – I don’t think this route will work for Cathay Pacific.
As things stand Delta is the only airline which offers a non-stop service between Hong Kong and Seattle and this service is being discontinued – if Delta can’t make this route work I can’t see what Cathay brings to the table that will change anything.
Delta has a very strong presence in Seattle and it has its whole US network to funnel passengers to and from the Seattle – Hong Kong route but still the route didn’t work for it…so what’s Cathay Pacific going to do?
It’s true to say that Cathay has a relationship with Alaska Airlines (whose home is in Seattle) but Alaska Airlines is not Delta (its route network is considerably more limited) so I can’t see this helping Cathay Pacific all that much.
On a positive note this new route means that flyers should have a new option on which to use their Alaska and American Airlines miles (50,000/70,000 miles each way in Business Class)….let’s just hope Cathay actually opens up some award space so we can try it out!
Featured image: Cathay Pacific
