Cathay Pacific lands first scheduled A350 service at Auckland Airport

The arrival of the world’s newest commercial airliner in Auckland marks another milestone in the rapid growth of air traffic between China and New Zealand.

Cathay Pacific’s Airbus A350-900 is the first of this next-generation aircraft – similar to Boeing’s 787 Dreamliner – to be put on a scheduled service to this country.

The Hong Kong-based airline has been in New Zealand for 33 years and the A350 will be flying daily until December when it will be joined by a Boeing 777-300ER for a double daily service during the peak holiday season.

The company’s head of sales and marketing, Dane Cheng, says apart from bringing new levels of passenger comfort and service, the long-range A350s will open up new “long, thin” routes with its 280-seat capacity (38 in business, 28 premium economy and 214 economy).

"With this aircraft you can operate to secondary destinations and lot of them will be new," he says, now the airline has five in service and by the end of next year will have taken delivery of 22.

New route to Israel
Cathay has just announced the latest of these new routes – Hong Kong to Tel Aviv direct.

The airline has been planning a service to Israel for some years to meet increasing business ties between that country and Asia.

It’s also been suggested Singapore Airlines will start flying directly to Tel Aviv in the near future.

Cathay’s service will start on March 26 and will fly over central Asia and down through Turkey. The Israeli airline, El Al, has a route to Bangkok that flies around Saudi Arabia and across the Indian Ocean.

"This will be a very good destination for us in completing our worldwide network," he says. 

Boost for Chinese airlines
Speaking at the arrival ceremony for the A350-900, Transport Minister Simon Bridges said having such a "state-of the-art" aircraft in New Zealand brings luxury within the reach of all travellers as well as the benefits of lower emissions and quieter engines.

He also told NBR the air services agreement with China (which is separate from Hong Kong) has just been boosted from 42 agreed in 2014 to 49 services and is already at full capacity.

He says that agreement will have to be renegotiated to cope with the growth of Chinese airlines wanting to fly to New Zealand.

Two more airlines are due before the end of the year while Hong Kong Airlines starts its daily service to Auckland on November 10.