Cathay Pacific boosting Frankfurt service with additional A350 flights

Cathay Pacific plans to boost its current daily service between Hong Kong and Frankfurt next year, with an additional three weekly flights operated by its Airbus A350-900 aircraft that will bring the airline’s total frequency on the route up to 10 flights per week.

The new CX282/CX283 flights will begin operating on March 31, 2019 flying on Tuesdays, Fridays and Sundays. The departing flight (CX283) out of Hong Kong leaves just after noon – 12 hours after the current daily CX289 flight – and arrives in Frankfurt that evening. The return leg, meanwhile, will depart in the evening about seven hours after the current CX288 flight and lands back in Hong Kong in the early afternoon the following morning.

Cathay Pacific currently flies its Boeing 777-300ER aircraft on its daily service between Hong Kong and Frankfurt. While the newer A350-900 does share the same seat product in business class as the 777-300ER, it also offers a number of cabin features designed to enhance the travel experience that aren’t offered on the older aircraft, notably enhanced light, humidity and temperature control as well as providing a generally quieter flight.

However there is one thing the 777-300ERs offer that the newer A350s don’t, and that is a first class cabin. While only some of Cathay Pacific’s configurations for the 777-300ER feature its most premium cabin (comprising of six seats at the nose of the plane), the aircraft deployed on the airline’s Frankfurt route is one such aircraft, according to the airline’s official website.

Cathay Pacific is also currently in the process of outfitting its entire 777 fleet with in-flight wifi as well as a new, thinner seat product as it transitions from the more spacious nine-across seating layout to the increasingly common 10-abreast configuration.

The Hong Kong-based carrier gained a significant connectivity boost through Frankfurt and other major European cities last year when it began codesharing on a number of routes operated by Lufthansa Group airlines, including the Lufthansa mainline as well as Austrian and Swiss.

Earlier this month, Cathay Pacific’s Frankfurt route also became one of the few destinations to see the rollout of the airline’s new long-haul business class dining concept, which is being gradually rolled out across its network. The new offering is expected to be available across all long-haul flights by June 2019.