Cathay Pacific Airways is expected to announce plans to grow its European network following the arrival of additional Boeing 777-300ERs later this year. According to reports, the Hong Kong-based carrier will introduce new non-stop flights to Zurich, Switzerland and Manchester, UK in late 2014 or early 2015 as well as a link to Boston, USA in 2015, having already boosted frequencies in a number of its existing North American markets this year.

According to Asian aviation consultancy and inteligence analysis provider, Aspire Aviation, Cathay Pacific is planning to inaugurate a daily link to Zurich from December 2014 and a four times weekly flight to Manchester from December 18, 2014, with the Boston flights following at some point in the first half of next year. The airline is due to introduce nine additional 777-300ERs to its fleet over the next two years and although some of these will replace older 747-400s which are being retired, they will also be used for growth.

Cathay Pacific is constantly studying new market opportunities and is known to have a strong interest in expanding its activities in Europe, adding to its already established network. However, it has made no comment on the speculation of these reported growth plans.

The carrier already offers non-stop flights from Hong Kong to Amsterdam, Frankfurt, London, Milan, Moscow, Paris and Rome. It had served Zurich previously but ended its operation in May 2001 due to commercial reasons, while the return of the Manchester link has long been mentioned due to the large Chinese populatin on northwest England.

There have been many rumours of Cathay Pacific supporting its cargo activities at Manchester with a passenger operation and a link via Moscow was expected to commence in March 2006 but was dropped due to traffic right issues. At this time the carrier claimed that a non-stop link between Manchester and Hong Kong would not have been profitable.

According to MIDT data an estimated 76,000 and 87,000 bi-directional O&D passengers flew between Zurich and Hong Kong and Manchester and Hong Kong in 2013, respectively. The Zurich – Hong Kong link is already served by Swiss International Air Lines but there are no direct flights between Manchester and the former British territory.

Despite the larger numbers on the Manchester – Hong Kong link, a city pair dominated by Emirates Airline via Dubai, our analysis shows that yields are considerably weaker with average air fares in 2013 less than half those being generated on Zurich – Hong Kong.

In our analysis below we highlight Cathay Pacific’s European air capacity from Hong Kong over the past ten years, based on OAG Schedules Analyser data. Between 2004 and 2013 the airline’s available non-stop seat capacity has risen 44.1 per cent. It had grown 56.8 per cent until 2011 but capacity has declined 5.4 per cent and 2.8 per cent over the past two years. The London market is its largest, accounting for 43.2 of the non-stop European capacity from Hong Kong last year but this has declined from a high of 46.5 per cent in 2010 due to the introduction of new direct links to Milan and Moscow.