At the airport in Hong Kong, Cathay City is the enormous corporate headquarters and crew base of Cathay Pacific.
Unsurprisingly, Hong Kong International Airport serves as the home of Cathay Pacific’s corporate office. Yet it’s shocking how big they are. Cathay Pacific City, one of the biggest corporate buildings in Asia, was constructed by the airline.
constructing Cathay City
In 1988, the same year that the brand-new Hong Kong International Airport was established, Cathay Pacific unveiled its new corporate headquarters. Southeast of the primary airport development, on four hectares of reclaimed ground, it was constructed.
Dragages Hong Kong, one of the project’s construction firms, estimates that the development’s overall floor space is 145,500 square meters. The overall cost of development, according to Cathay Pacific, was $4.9 billion Hong Kong Dollars (624 million USD). As implied by the name, Cathay City is more than just a single corporate headquarters. There are numerous structures for various purposes, including a 23-story main structure.
numerous structures and facilities
The corporate office, the flight operations hub, and the base for personnel gathering and flight preparation are all located in Cathay City.
The enormous complex includes a hotel for airline employees, offices, an auditorium, a flight operations center, a crew operations center, and a sizable training facility.
The training facility features multiple full cabin mockups for various aircraft and cabins, as well as a full model of the Airbus A330 interior. This enables the cabin crew to practice and receive training. Facilities for emergency and cabin evacuation training are also available.
One of the priorities is providing round-the-clock service to airline personnel, both flying and operational. Crew housing, catering, laundry services, a bank, stores, a hair salon, and even a full gym with basketball courts is available for personnel at Cathay City.
Watch this video from Luxury Fred for an interesting tour of some of Cathay City’s facilities. The views are especially amazing from the hotel’s upper stories!
A vintage DC-3 honors the airline’s history.
There is also an aircraft, appropriately. An ex-Cathay Pacific Douglas DC-3 is situated near Cathay City’s main front entrance. Even though one of the airline’s initial airplanes, Betsy, is preserved and on exhibit at the Hong Kong Science Museum, she was not the famous one with which the company was started.
In January 1946, Betsy began operating, first out of Shanghai. In September of that year, the airline (along with its lone aircraft) relocated to Hong Kong. By the end of the year, two more DC-3s, including VR-HDA, which is currently in Cathay City, had joined the fleet.
Airlines and Waterside British
The construction of a sizable consolidated headquarters for certain purposes is not limited to Cathay Pacific. As a brand-new dedicated headquarters, British Airways constructed Waterside near to its location at Terminal 5 at London Heathrow. Cathay City fulfills comparable purposes, but this does not go as far.
The £200 million building debuted in 1998 as well. However its future is questionable. With significantly decreased utilization both during and after the epidemic, British Airlines declared in 2021 that it was considering selling Waterside. If the third runway for the airport is built, the complex is scheduled to be dismantled regardless of what happens.
