Cathay Pacific brings back Brisbane-Hong Kong flights
Cathay Pacific will return to Queensland’s skies from early 2021, after a 10-month pause on its flights to Brisbane.
By Chris C., November 26 2020
Executive Traveller exclusive
Cathay Pacific’s Brisbane-Hong Kong route will take wing once again from January 2021, restoring a service that’s been paused since March 2020 when Australia’s international travel restrictions came into effect.
As that ‘travel ban’ remains for those without an exemption to fly, the airline’s Brisbane service will operate just once per week at first.
From Hong Kong to Brisbane, CX155 will run on Sundays from January 3 – an overnight service, arriving in the Queensland capital on Monday mornings – while from Brisbane, CX150 operates on Mondays from January 4.
Cathay Pacific’s Airbus A350-900s will make the voyage, complete with the airline’s latest business class seats, being a more refined version of the ‘Cirrus’ seats found flying on Cathay’s Airbus A330s and Boeing 777s, with refinements by Studio F.A. Porsche.
ET review: Cathay Pacific A350 business class, Brisbane-Hong Kong
These jets also offer a cosy premium economy cabin of 28 seats, arranged in a 2-4-2 layout.
ET review: Cathay Pacific A350 premium economy, Brisbane-HKG
From February, the airline’s current flight plans show Brisbane-Hong Kong doubling to two weekly return flights, but how Cathay Pacific’s schedule shapes up beyond that remains to be seen.
Brisbane joins Cathay’s Sydney, Melbourne, Perth flights
While Cathay Pacific flights to Brisbane had remained paused since March, the carrier has most recently been offering services from Sydney, Melbourne and Perth to Hong Kong.
Those are set to continue, with Sydney climbing from 5-6 weekly returns in December to seven weekly return flights in January 2021.
Melbourne is also set for an increase, from 3-4 weekly returns next month to a flat four weekly return flights from the New Year. Passengers will also be able to travel inbound on Cathay Pacific’s Melbourne flights from December 7, as Victoria welcomes back international arriving passengers.
Over in Perth, the airline’s single weekly return flight linking the city with Hong Kong will continue throughout December and January.
Cathay Pacific flights to Adelaide remain suspended.
Of course, with Australia’s international travel restrictions still in place, caps limiting the number of arriving passengers, and mandatory quarantine awaiting their arrival in Australia, flights are expected to remain limited until these restrictions are eased.
Also read: Etihad Airways pulls the plug on Brisbane
Chris is a a former contributor to Executive Traveller.
Qantas
19 Apr 2012
Total posts 1435
Interesting they may be replacing some of their regular freighter flights with these or using these to supplement them. They will only be allowed 30-40 passengers on each so it will business class only.
09 Nov 2015
Total posts 5
@Patrickk the flights are not ‘business class only’. Do some research and stop spreading misinformation.
Qantas
19 Apr 2012
Total posts 1435
Rhysr if there are only 30-40 seats allowable on each flight do you really think they will be selling many economy class seats. Perhaps your research is faulty. There are many reports of the unavailability of Economy seats to Australia. Airlines do this as a business so as I said these airlines do this mainly for freight. Qantas has A333s on this run and don’t bother with passengers at all.
17 Jun 2020
Total posts 247
@patrickk Cathay are selling seats across all cabins. And the only people that would know what is being sold or not are people in Cathay HQ. Stop spreading misinformation and fake news.
20 Nov 2015
Total posts 414
Patrick, a lot of these flights are open for economy as well as business class. A friend of mine fly back with CX from HKG to SYD this week, he's now in quarantine at the Radisson, and said his flight had 21 people in business, one in premium and 15 in economy. So please don't make absolute statements like "these flights will be business class only" because that's completely wrong and without foundation.
Qantas
19 Apr 2012
Total posts 1435
Asia, many apologies for not saying 'mainly business', but I think many other airlines are not so generous with 40% economy.
Virgin Australia - Velocity Rewards
06 Mar 2015
Total posts 232
Great to see Cathay resuming albeit a limited service using their A350-9oo.
I flew with them about 12 months ago on their A350 in Business Class from Hong Kong to Vancouver and apart from the A380 the A350 is one of the most comfortable, quite and enjoyable aircraft I have ever travelled in. Absolutely magnificent in all respects.
Can't wait for things to really get going to fly on their A350 again!!1
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