Cathay Pacific to return to Manchester

As I’m fond of reminding some people “There is life beyond London and the South East of England”.

I know for most people down south this is a shock, but it is a truth as there is thriving industry and commerce in Scotland, the North East, the North West, the Midlands, Wales, Nortern Ireland and the South West of England.

And this is true to flying. Amazingly, not all of us want to go to Heathrow. In the case of heading to Asia from the UK regions, you have a three options:

• Go via London (flying British Airways or Virgin Atlantic)
• Go Via Europe (flying KLM, Air France, Lufthansa or another European airline)
• Go via the Persian Gulf (flying Emirates, Etihad or Qatar)

So a fair few options, but all requiring one stop at least.

Manchester for some time has had a Singapore Airlines flight between Manchester and Singapore… with a slight disadvantage as it stops at Munich to pick up passengers (in effect a tag-on flight.

However it seems that Hong Kong carrier Cathay Pacific is to return to the city Manchester operating a four times per week service between the cities of Hong Kong and Manchester.

Cathay Pacific Boeing 777-300ER – Image GhettoIFE.

Flights details are below:

CX357 DEPART HKG 01:00 ARRIVE MAN 06:20
CX358 DEPART MAN 12:00 ARRIVE HKG 07:55+1

Booked Equipment: Three Class Boeing 777-300. 
Commences: 8th December.
Operates Monday, Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday

The configuration of the three class 777-300ER is made up of:

• 40 Business class seats
• 32 Premium Economy Seats
• 268 Economy Seats
• Total: 340 Seats

For Manchester (and those who don’t like flying via London) this represents an excellent regional opportunity to fly a world class carrier. As Manchester has the third largest Chinatown in Europe, with a mixture of student, business and leisure traffic possible, it should bode well for Cathay Pacific.

So far, redemptions are not showing (although given time, I’m sure they’ll appear).

Hmm. That launch date is near my Birthday. Could be worth looking at a quickie trip to Hong Kong…

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