What does the Cathay Pacific fleet look like? How are planes used?

Cathay Pacific has been one of the hardest hit and most affected airlines by covid in the world. Few places depend heavily on travel as Hong Kong does. Therefore, the stringent travel bans imposed by the central Chinese government had a massive destructive impact. In the post-2020 world that translated for the hometown carrier Cathay Pacific in a slower performance when compared with its peers. Profits took a hit and so did the onboard product. However, staff and fleet restructuring made the airline more streamlined and able to recover profitability rapidly. But how is the airline set up? Which planes does the Cathay Pacific fleet include? Let’s take a closer look.

The Cathay Pacific Passenger Fleet – Undergoing Modernisation

Cathay Pacific’s fleet used to be comprised of wide body planes until a few years ago. However, the latest technology advancements in narrow body planes, which enabled them to fly further with more passengers, pushed the airline to invest on this type of plane too.

Splitting, as I always do, the fleet in wide body and narrow body we can already spot that the single aisle planes are exclusively Airbus. Specifically, Cathay Pacific uses only A321neo planes in its narrow body operations. They fly the medium and short-range flights in the CX route network, they are not though the only planes used this way.

Also, the Airbus A330-300s in the Cathay fleet have the same usage as the A321neo. The primary difference is that the A330s are, as you might have imagined, used for high demand routes needing a higher capacity plane. They don’t fly on long range routes despite them being able to fly more than 11,000km.

The A330-300 are on the way out though. The airline has placed an order for 30 Airbus A330-900neo which will gradually replace the older generation of A330s. Although the Boeing 777s have a similar average age of the A330s they will stay in the fleet for a longer time. They will get the updated version of Cathay Pacific’s business class seat, the Aria Suites. Also, the Boeing 777s are the only planes featuring the Cathay Pacific First Class product and, therefore, they fly on the carrier’s flagship routes.

Cathay Pacific Wide Body Fleet

Manufacturer	Type	Quantity
Airbus	A330-300	37
Boeing	777-300ER	37
Airbus	A350-900	29
Airbus	A350-1000	18
Boeing	777-300	17

Cathay Pacific Narrow Body Fleet

Manufacturer	Type	Quantity
Airbus	A321neo	12

These 12 Airbus A321neo feature a remarkably comfortable 2-class configurations, offering the choice to travel on one of twelve true business class seats at the front of the cabin or on one of 190 economy class seats.

The Cathay Pacific Aircraft Cabin Configurations

Cathay is one of those airlines which has assorted the cabin configuration of its planes in quite a variety of solutions. This allows the carrier to streamline operations with a small selection of aircraft types while having a complete offering of configurations to use depending on operational needs.

Aircraft	First Class	Business Class	Premium Economy	Economy
A350-900	–	38	28	214
A350-1000	–	46	32	256
777-300ER	–	40	32	296
777-300ER	6	53	44	201
777-300	–	42	–	396
A330-300	–	42	–	265
A330-300	–	39	–	223
A330-300	–	38	–	265
A330-300	–	39	21	191
A330-300	–	24	–	293

Narrow body fleet configuration

Aircraft	Business Class	Economy
A321neo	12	190

Cathay Airways planes parked at gate at HKIA at night. CX is about to up frequency on flights to Brisbane, Perth and Auckland

The Cathay Cargo Fleet

Moving on to the Cathay Cargo division, the fleet composition is simpler and more streamlined but still interesting. What makes the Cathay Cargo fleet interesting is the fact that the carrier uses only Boeing 747s in 2 variants for its operations.

Currently, Cathay Cargo’s fleet features: