[HKG,CHC]

Major East Asian carrier Cathay Pacific has announced a revival of a popular route to New Zealand, Christchurch.

The route, last operated in 2019, is over 5,000 miles long and takes 10 to 11 hours. Cathay’a route from Hong Kong will operate throughout the Southern Hemisphere summer season starting on December 15, 2023, and will accompany additional New Zealand service to Auckland.

Cathay Pacific’s resumption of a route previously assumed deceased due to the coronavirus pandemic, is launched in strong part due to significant rises in demand for travelers to visit New Zealand. In addition to the ever-existing demand for New Zealand’s people to visit the rest of the world, more services to the somewhat isolated island are always welcome in this regard.

Like on many other of its long-haul routes, Cathay will offer the Christchurch flights aboard its Airbus A350-900 aircraft. The Airbus A350 family of aircraft is one of the most technically advanced aircraft of its size and Cathay’s use of the aircraft type on so many routes highlights the versatility and sheer power of the A350.

The airline has various configurations of the A350-900 and on the Christchurch route, Cathay will deploy the 280-seat variation seating passengers in Business, Premium Economy, and Economy seats.

While the resumption of pre-pandemic routes might sound like Cathay will begin to regain its ground as a significant East Asian carrier, the airline is still heavily affected by the lasting effects of the pandemic. With much of its route network relying on Asian countries, and with those being closed for most of the past 3 1/2 years, Cathay Pacific has reported record losses.

While new and returning routes are an encouraging sign, many industry experts doubt the airline will be able to regain the position it once was in. The reasons are clear: the closure of Russian airspace has made services to the USA, Canada, and Europe very difficult to impossible. Before the shutdown of the pandemic and then the subsequent war in Ukraine, Cathay relied on premium travelers from these high-income countries for a large part of its demand and profit.

Furthermore, with political challenges facing the nation, the future of Hong Kong as a global super-connector remains questionable at best, and many analysts worry that the airline’s days as one of the largest and most powerful are numbered.

While we may not yet know the future of the route network of Cathay Pacific and its hub at Hong Kong’s Chep Lak Kok International Airport (HKG), we can be certain that the airline is trying strategically to regain profitability and successfully navigate a complicated post-pandemic world.