Cathay Pacific Airways is to launch non-stop services between its Hong Kong base and New York in July after deferring plans for the route in 2001.
Daily services will be operated from July with Airbus A340-600s. Cathay had been considering the services for years and at one point set a start date of Sept-ember 2001, only to shelve the launch.
Cathay currently serves New York JFK airport via Vancouver in Canada. It will maintain its daily Hong Kong-Vancouver-New York services, and the new flights will lift to 72 the number of passenger and cargo services it will operate each week between Hong Kong and North America.
The new flights will operate over the northern polar region. In February, Hong Kong and Russia negotiated a new air services agreement that gave Hong Kong-based airlines a 30% increase in the number of flights they can operate through Russian airspace.
Cathay will be the only airline operating non-stop flights between New York JFK and Hong Kong, although it will be competing with Continental Airlines, which operates non-stop between Newark and Hong Kong using Boeing 777-200ERs.
United Airlines launched daily non-stop New York-Hong Kong flights in April 2001 using Boeing 747-400s but scrapped the services in August that year due to low demand.
Source: Airline Business
