In late 2019 Cathay Pacific announced plans to halt flying from Hong Kong to JFK via Vancouver. With the onset of COVID-19 the termination of the route accelerated. Flights stopped in February 2020. Next month, however, the carrier seems keen to bring back the service, also likely driven at least in part by COVID-related policies.
The new service will, however, differ significantly from the prior operation in at least one key way: Local traffic will not be carried between New York City and Vancouver.
The regulatory filing requests access to operate a connecting service from JFK to Hong Kong via Vancouver. The existing flight schedules between Hong Kong and Vancouver will increase to daily service from the currently planned 3x weekly. An additional pair of flight numbers will be added for the Vancouver-JFK turn.
Historically the Vancouver stop had all passengers deplane and those continuing onward remain in a holding area while the aircraft was cleaned. The published connection time in Vancouver of 35 minutes in each direction makes that a very difficult proposition.
The filing also describes a connection to B747 equipment, which is almost certainly a mistake. Cathay no longer operates passenger 747s.
UPDATE 5 July 2022 10:50a EDT: Cathay Pacific filed an update, indicating that the HKG-YVR onward connection is a Boeing 777, not a 747 as initially mentioned. This still does not align with currently filed schedules, but at least it is a passenger aircraft rather than cargo.
How Cathay Pacific handles the tight connection, including whether passengers switch aircraft, remains to be seen. One option could see bags and cargo destined for Hong Kong Vancouver in separate containers, offloaded quickly, along with those passengers, during the stop. The lighter loaded plane would then continue to JFK. On the return the additional containers and passengers would similarly board at Vancouver, joining the passengers from JFK. Or the flight timings will be adjusted.
The A350 could easily make the trip to JFK nonstop from Hong Kong. Stopping in Vancouver may, however, help the carrier conserve limited crew as it resumes operations. Extending the trip to JFK, even with a swap at Vancouver, should require fewer total staff than running both the Vancouver and JFK flights separately.
It would be even more efficient if Cathay still had a crew base in Vancouver, but that closed two year ago in some of the company’s earliest COVID-related cuts.
There’s also the issue of Russian air space. The flight from Hong Kong to JFK easily avoids that issue, taking advantage of the jetstream across the Pacific.
The return flight, however, typically would fly polar. The current non-stop options are not using Russian airspace, so the trip is longer than it used to be. But not so long that a Vancouver stop is absolutely required.
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Something doesn’t make sense because CX no longer has passenger 747s. This must be a cargo flight.
Correct, CX doesn’t operate passenger 747s. But the filing is explicit about it being passenger service and the JFK-YVR operating on an A350.
Just got the updated filing. It is now saying 777, not 747, so a passenger plane. Doesn’t align with the filed HKG-YVR plane right now, but a step in the right direction.
In the past, we flew the Cathay JFK-YVR trip (and return) many times, and were sad when the route was cut. I was excited to see the news of the resumption, but concerned about what the “catch” is …I see the updated info, but I’m still not understanding the catch, nor what is meant by “Local traffic will not be carried between New York City and Vancouver” or whether that is still accurate, in light of the updated info. Does the above phrase mean that Cathay will not sell tickets between JFK & YVR (and use the stop solely for operations purposes)? Ultimately, I’m trying to understand is: Once the service resumes, will we be able to buy tix (and fly) from JFK to YVR (with no involvement of HKG in our itinerary)??? Thanks!
“Local traffic” in this case means they are not planning to sell just YVR-JFK or vv. The plane will stop, but only passengers booked JFK-HKG or YVR-HKG (or vv) can be on board.