Cathay Pacific trims San Francisco and D.C. capacity

Cathay Pacific Airways is trimming capacity to the U.S. this winter, with San Francisco and Washington seeing reductions.

The Oneworld alliance carrier will reduce capacity to San Francisco (SFO) and Washington Dulles (IAD) by shifting to smaller aircraft on both routes this winter. One of the airline's three daily flights to San Francisco will shift to an Airbus A350-900 with 280 seats from a Boeing 777-300ER with up to 294 seats, according to Cirium schedules. After the change, Cathay Pacific will offer two A350s and one 777 daily to San Francisco.

In addition, Cathay Pacific will shift its four weekly Dulles flights to an A350-900 from an A350-1000 with 334 seats, Cirium shows.

Sign up for the free daily TPG newsletter for more airline news!

Cathay Pacific told TPG that it will maintain 25 weekly flights to New York John F. Kennedy through the winter.

Cathay Pacific's capacity reductions are just its latest response to a drop in demand to Hong Kong since protests began last year. In November, Reuters reported that the airline would cut capacity by 1.4% in 2020 rather than a previously planned 3.1% increase.

Daily Newsletter

Reward your inbox with the TPG Daily newsletter

Join over 700,000 readers for breaking news, in-depth guides and exclusive deals from TPG’s experts

Email address

Sign up

By signing up, you will receive newsletters and promotional content and agree to our Terms of Use and acknowledge the data practices in our Privacy Policy. You may unsubscribe at any time.

That disclosure followed the September news that the airline would end its long-standing fifth-freedom flight between New York JFK and Vancouver (YVR) enroute to Hong Kong this March.

Another change: Cathay Pacific will fly A350 to Chicago, eliminating first class on that route

The story has been updated to remove references to a reduction in frequencies to New York JFK in Cathay Pacific's winter schedule.