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Planespotters at Sydney Airport have been treated to the first Australian visit of Cathay Pacific’s retro-livery A350-900.
B-LRJ, decked out in the 1970s-1990s “lettuce leaf sandwich” livery to mark the airline’s 80th anniversary, arrived in Sydney at 7am on Wednesday, operating flight CX111 from Hong Kong.
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“This year marks the 80th anniversary of Cathay operations, and today in Sydney was the first time in Australia that the retro aircraft has arrived,” said Nigel Chynoweth, Cathay’s area head of cargo, Australia & New Zealand.
“Cathay started operating [passenger flights] into Sydney in 1974, and this livery was on the aircraft. So, there’s a lot of staff and a lot of frequent flyers who really are connected with this livery, and then in 1994 we got the newer ‘brushwing’.
“Cathay has a long history with Australia. One of the founders was an Australian, Syd de Kantzow, and our first flight was a flight from Sydney to Hong Kong in 1946.”
B-LRJ was also the aircraft that operated the inaugural flight of Cathay Pacific’s return to Adelaide last year, with the seasonal service to operate until March. It was the first time Cathay had operated regular Adelaide services since withdrawing from the route in 2020.
Cathay now operates to Adelaide, Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, Perth and Cairns, alongside Auckland and Christchurch, making for around 100 services per week to Australia and New Zealand.
Speaking to Australian Aviation at a media event in Sydney last year, Tom Kennedy, Cathay’s regional head of customer travel and lifestyle, Southwest Pacific, said Australia is “really important” for the carrier.
“We’ve been operating flights here to Australia for 55 years. Perth, in fact, was our very first port that we commenced flights to,” he said.
“Australia is a long-standing, mature market for Cathay, and we fly to all the major cities.
“All of our flights connect up to Hong Kong and then to 100 destinations beyond Hong Kong, and Australia is right up there in terms of a key source market for Cathay, being a network carrier.”
The Commonwealth government last year authorised increasing passenger capacity for Hong Kong to 84 flights per week, up from 70, and with no limits on cargo services.
