Cathay Pacific Will Only Serve Three US Cities In September

a large white airplane parked at an airport

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Update 18 August: Cathay Pacific has increased scheduled frequencies to the 3 US cities it plans to serve in September.

Before the travel world came to grinding halt, Cathay Pacific offered flights between Hong Kong and eight US airports across 7 US cities but, in a further sign of how slowly travel is currently recovering, the carrier is only set to operate to three of those cities in September 2020.

In normal times (i.e when there isn’t a pandemic bringing chaos to the planet), Cathay Pacific serves these eight US destinations out of Hong Kong:

  • Boston
  • Chicago
  • Los Angeles
  • New York (JFK)
  • New York (EWR)
  • San Francisco
  • Seattle
  • Washington D.C.

According to the latest schedule changes, these are the services Cathay Pacific will offer to the US in September 2020:

Hong Kong – Los Angeles

In September 2020, Los Angeles will be seeing Cathay Pacific operate 7 flights per week out of Hong Kong but because of how the timings fall, the service isn’t quite daily. Here’s the currently published schedule:

CX880 HKG 00:05 – 22:45-1 day LAX (Mon, Wed & Thu)
CX882 HKG 12:40 – 11:20 LAX (Sat & Sun)
CX882 HKG 16:45 – 15:20 LAX (Mon & Fri)

CX883 LAX 00:15 – 05:45+1 day HKG (Tue & Sat)
CX881 LAX 01:15 – 06:45+1 day HKG (Mon, Wed & Thu)
CX885 LAX 13:00 – 05:45+1 day HKG (Sat & Sun)

In the last schedule update we saw, all HKG-LAX flights were set to be operated by 777-300ERs. Now, all flights are scheduled to be operated by a mix of A350-900 and A350-1000 aircraft.

Hong Kong – New York (JFK)

Note: The latest news suggests that Cathay will be operating a daily service between Hong Kong and New York in September 2020 but, at the time of writing, this hasn’t been reflected in the schedules.

The New York area is used to receiving multiple daily Cathay Pacific flights into JFK and Newark but, in September 2020, only JFK will be served and only 5 weekly flights will operate. Here’s the currently published schedule:

CX844 HKG 02:00 – 06:00 JFK (Mon, Thu & Sat)
CX840 HKG 16:15 – 20:25 JFK (Tue & Sun)

CX843 JFK 01:55 – 05:40+1 day HKG (Mon & Wed)
CX841 JFK 10:00 – 14:00+1 day HKG (Mon, Thu & Sat)

These flights will be operated by a mix of 777-300ER and A350-1000 aircraft

a seat in a plane
Cathay Pacific Business Class

Hong Kong – San Francisco

Note: The latest news suggests that Cathay Pacific will be operating a daily service between Hong Kong and San Francisco in September 2020 but, at the time of writing, this hasn’t been reflected in the schedules.

San Francisco is the third and final US city that will get service from Cathay Pacific in September 2020 meaning that the West Coast remains well-served while travelers in most of the rest of the United States will have to rely on other carriers or connecting itineraries if they plan to visit Hong Kong.

Here’s the Hong Kong – San Francisco Schedule and it stands:

CX872 HKG 00:45 – 22:45-1 day SFO (Mon, Wed & Sun)
CX870 HKG 13:55 – 12:00 SFO (Thu & Sat)

CX873 SFO 00:55 – 06:00+1 day HKG (Mon, Wed & Sun)
CX879 SFO 10:00 – 14:00+1 day HKG (Thu & Sat)

These flights will be operated by a mix of A350-900 and A350-1000 aircraft.

Bottom Line

If you’re in the ever-dwindling number of people who still think that the travel world will bounce back with a vengeance you should probably think again. Admittedly Cathay Pacific is in an almost uniquely poor position as it has to contend with the issues in Hong Kong as well as the global pandemic, but these kinds of reduced schedules aren’t unique to Cathay. British Airways has recently pushed back a lot of its proposed frequency increases to November and airlines like Air France and Lufthansa are not showing any eagerness to put more aircraft into the skies. This pandemic has brought chaos to the travel industry and the chaos isn’t going away any time soon.