Cathay Pacific Airways Limited (CPA), more widely known as Cathay Pacific (), is the flag carrier of Hong Kong, with its head office and main hub located at Hong Kong International Airport. The airline's operations and subsidiaries have scheduled passenger and cargo services to over 190 destinations and present in more than 60 countries worldwide including codeshares and joint ventures. Cathay Pacific operates a fleet consisting of Airbus A321neo, Airbus A330, Airbus A350, and Boeing 777 aircraft. Cathay Cargo operates two models of the Boeing 747. Defunct wholly-owned subsidiary airline Cathay Dragon, which ceased operations in 2020, previously flew to 44 destinations in the Asia-Pacific region from its Hong Kong base. In 2010, Cathay Pacific and Cathay Pacific Cargo (now Cathay Cargo), together with Cathay Dragon, carried nearly 27 million passengers and over 1.8 million tons of cargo and mail.
The airline was founded on 24 September 1946 by Australian Sydney H. de Kantzow and American Roy C. Farrell, the airline celebrated its 70th anniversary in 2016. As of March 2021, its major shareholders are Swire Pacific with a 42.3% stake, Air China with a 28.2% and Qatar Airways with a 9.4% stake.
Cathay Pacific group is one of the founding members of Oneworld alliance. In 2018, it was the 19th largest airline group in the world ranked by traffic.
History
1946–1960: The early years
Cathay Pacific Airways was founded on 24 September 1946 in Hong Kong. Sydney "Syd" de Kantzow, Roy Farrell, Neil Buchanan, Donald Brittan Evans and Robert "Bob" Stanley Russell were the initial shareholders. Buchanan and Russell had already worked for de Kantzow and Farrell at Roy Farrell Import-Export Company, the predecessor of Cathay Pacific, that was initially headquartered in Shanghai. Both de Kantzow and Farrell were Ex-Air Force pilots who had flown The Hump, a route over the Himalayan mountains. Farrell purchased the airline's first aircraft, a Douglas DC-3, nicknamed Betsy, at Bush Field, New York City in 1945. The company began freight services on 28 January 1950 from Sydney to Shanghai, after Farrell and Russell flew the plane to Australia and obtained a licence to carry freight (but not passengers) earlier that month. Its first commercial flight was a shipment of Australian goods. The profitable business soon attracted attention from Republic of China government officials. After several instances where the company's planes were detained by authorities in Shanghai, on 11 May 1946 the company relocated, flying its two planes to Hong Kong. Farrell and de Kantzow re-registered their business in Hong Kong on 24 September 1946 as Cathay Pacific Airways Limited, while another sister company, The Roy Farrell Export Import Company (Hong Kong) Limited, was incorporated on 28 August 1946 and chartered some flights from Cathay. (According to International Directory of Company Histories, two companies were formed for tax purposes.)
They named the airline Cathay, the ancient name given to China, and Pacific because Farrell speculated that they would one day fly across the Pacific (which happened in the 1970s). Moreover, to avoid the name "Air Cathay" as it had already been used in a comic. The Chinese name for the company ("") was not settled on until the 1950s. It comes from a Chinese idiom meaning "Peace and Prosperity" and was at the time often used by other businesses called "Cathay" in English.
According to legend, the airline's unique name was conceived by Farrell and some foreign correspondents at the bar of the Manila Hotel, while another narrative was the name was taken in the Cathay Hotel in Shanghai Bund, during drinking and brainstorming, and choosing Cathay was to avoid the word China in the airline name. On Cathay Pacific's maiden voyage, de Kantzow and Peter Hoskins flew from Sydney to Hong Kong via Manila. The airline initially flew routes between Hong Kong, Sydney, Manila, Singapore, Shanghai, Saigon, Bangkok, with additional chartered destinations. The airline grew quickly. By 1947, it had added another five DC-3s and two Vickers Catalina seaplanes to its fleet.