The homecoming marks the close of a remarkable chapter in the carrier’s rebuild journey
The Cathay Group celebrated the completion of one of the most unprecedented undertakings in its 77-year history when on 6 June 2024, it reactivated the 85th and final aircraft to be long-term parked overseas. After nearly four years in the Australian desert, Cathay Pacific’s Airbus A330 registration B-HLV returned to Hong Kong, where it will now undergo an extensive hangar maintenance check. B-HLV was the first of the Cathay Group’s aircraft to go into long-term parking overseas on 28 July 2020, as global air travel came to a near-standstill during the pandemic.
At the height of the pandemic, Cathay Pacific and HK Express had to park the majority of their passenger fleet at Hong Kong International Airport and overseas in Alice Springs, Australia and Ciudad Real, Spain. As the pandemic began to subside, the Cathay Group commenced the progressive reactivation of these aircraft. This involved the performance of a rigorous series of maintenance checks and inspections to ensure safety and performance.
Chief Operations and Service Delivery Officer Alex McGowan said: “Parking and reactivating so many aircraft is a once-in-a-lifetime undertaking, the scale and complexity of which has never been seen before at Cathay. An incredible amount of work goes into keeping an aircraft safe and protected when it isn’t flying, and to then reactivate it for entry back into regular service. To do this for more than 85 aircraft long-term parked overseas, as well as to manage the large number of aircraft that were parked in Hong Kong, is a phenomenal achievement. Our heartfelt thanks go out to the Hong Kong Civil Aviation Department for their invaluable support throughout this process.
“With our fleet now fully reunited, our focus is firmly on investing for the future. The Cathay Group has more than 70 new aircraft on order, with the right to acquire an additional 52 aircraft in the future. We are also exploring options for a new mid-size widebody aircraft.”
General Manager Engineering Operations Bob Taylor said: “An aircraft that is in long-term parking requires a defined programme of maintenance checks and inspections that are repeated over a regular cycle to ensure it’s preserved in tip-top condition.”
Each aircraft that was long-term parked in Alice Springs underwent a 14-day preservation check when it first arrived that was then followed by a repeating series of periodic inspections and checks. Over the course of the parking programme in Alice Springs, more than 16,000 of these periodic checks were performed, and a total of 800,000 labour hours were spent performing preservation, periodic and reactivation maintenance.
Furthermore, over 40,000 parts and items of specialised equipment were also shipped from Hong Kong to support the Alice Springs operation. Meanwhile, the Cathay Group’s onsite Quality Assurance team conducted more than 2,000 audits.
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