Ever since Cathay Pacific’s inaugural flight 75 years ago, the airline has grown from one aircraft with a regional focus, into an international full-service carrier, winning the Skytrax World’s Best Airline Award four times.
The airline operates 180 aircrafts with an average fleet age of 6.5 years. Driven to their vision of sustainability, when delivering a new aircraft, Cathay Pacific uses a blend of biofuel. In 2016, Cathay Pacific’s A350-900 performed the world’s longest flight using a blend of biofuel. Cathay Pacific was the first Asian airline to launch its own carbon offsetting programme in 1997, and the first airline to invest in biofuel production with Fulcrum. In 2019, Cathay Pacific became the first airline in the world to serve ‘Omnipork’ – a plant-based meat alternative – onboard.
The airline’s engineering team worked with the Rolls Royce research and development team to launch the world’s first non-stop flight from London to Hong Kong in 1983, a world-record achievement at the time.
To commemorate more than 7 decades of successful service, Cathay Pacific has created a special series of limited-edition merchandise. Customers have the opportunity to get a special collector’s box sets each featuring seven aircraft models, from the airline’s very first Douglas DC-3 aircraft, “Betsy”, to the newest member of its fleet, the Airbus A321neo. Customers can also give their luggage a touch of history with limited-edition aviation-themed luggage tags. Each has been formed from the body of Cathay Pacific’s Boeing 777-200 B-HND aircraft – affectionately called the “Haneda Jet” – which joined the fleet on 13 June 1996 and carried more than six million passengers over her lifetime.
All 75th anniversary memorabilia is available exclusively on the Cathay shopping platform: click here to see.
