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Hong Kong’s Cathay Pacific has launched daily flights to Changsha, the provincial capital of Hunan in mainland China, with its CEO expressing confidence in passenger demand and the group’s ability to boost its service during the year-end peak period. Cathay Group CEO Ronald Lam Siu-por also said on Tuesday that the company was setting its sights on expanding its network to 30 mainland cities as its next milestone. Changsha is the fifth mainland city to be added to the group’s network this year. The city’s flag carrier started offering daily non-stop flights between Hong Kong International Airport and Changsha Huanghua International Airport on Tuesday. Lam said Changsha was a vibrant city in central China and the route had received a positive response from business and leisure travellers alike. “We are very confident about the performance of this route,” he said. The latest route is part of the group’s strategy to grow its international and mainland network, which has reached more than 100 destinations this year. “Other than serving Changsha and Hong Kong travellers, we also hope to facilitate customers travelling from Hunan province to the rest of the world by transiting through Hong Kong,” he said. “Similarly, the flight could attract more international tourists to visit Changsha.” Although Hongkongers could reach Changsha via a high-speed rail ride of around three hours, Cathay said it was confident that the flights could attract their own set of travellers, tapping into Hong Kong’s connectivity to the rest of the world. Martin Xu, the general manager of Cathay Pacific’s mainland commercial and operations, said both the high-speed rail and flights had their strengths. The flights, scheduled at different times on different days of the week, were designed to cater to travellers transiting Hong Kong, he said. “For international travellers, flights are more convenient as the flight is under two hours, and they can transfer to the rest of the world,” he said. He added that to attract passengers, the airline would offer competitive prices during the initial period for direct and transfer passengers. Changsha is an ancient city with a history of 3,000 years and is famed for its cuisine featuring dry chillies and bold flavours. A huge statue of a young Mao Zedong stands on Orange Island in Changsha, where he attended university. On top of being a manufacturing hub, it is also a major entertainment and nightlife destination and home to Hunan Television, China’s second most-watched channel and a key producer of mainland variety shows. It is the fifth mainland city to be added to the Cathay group’s network in 2025, bringing the overall number of mainland cities in its network to 24. Cathay Pacific launched services to Urumqi in April. HK Express, the group’s budget carrier, launched flights to Changzhou and Yiwu in May, Guiyang in July and Harbin in October. “For our group, our next milestone is reaching 30 mainland cities and we are slowly moving towards it,” Lam said. He said the company would be studying the demand and looking into opening new routes to provincial capitals, weighing factors such as point-to-point and transit passenger demand, cargo demand and the availability of airport slots. In the coming year-end peak travel period, Cathay Pacific and HK Express will operate more than 330 return flights per week between the mainland and Hong Kong, including increased frequencies to major cities like Beijing and Shanghai. Lam said that manpower is “no longer an issue at all” from pilots to cabin crew and ground employees, after three years of hard work put into their recruitment drive. “All planes are active and flying, meaning that we have sufficient human resources to support our flight frequencies,” he said. “I’m glad to say we no longer face any manpower shortages.”
