May 4, 2008

Exhibit highlights Cathay Pacific Airways

By Yevgeniy Sverdlik / Bay Area News Group

Passengers and greeters with time to kill at the San Francisco International Airport can shorten their waits this summer by learning a little history.

The airport museum is hosting an exhibit that captures the history of Cathay Pacific Airways through photographs, model aircraft, flight attendant uniforms and samples of the china and silverware used by passengers.

"The exhibit is about our six decades of service," said Alan Wong, a senior vice president the 62-year-old Hong Kong-based airline.

"SFO is the first airport where we decided to do the exhibit," added Wong, noting that the company is planning similar projects at other U.S. airports.

The exhibit prominently features the evolution of Cathay Pacific's flight attendant uniforms, from styles resembling military uniforms during the 1940s and 1950s to miniskirts of the late 1960s and early 1970s to the current bright red skirts and jackets designed by Eddie Lau, a celebrity fashion designer from Hong Kong, to Wong said.

San Francisco International was the first U.S. airport Cathay Pacific flew into, Wong said. That first flight was in July 1986. The company flew passengers from Hong Kong to San Francisco via Vancouver until 1990, when its aircraft began landing at Los Angeles International Airport instead. Cathay aircraft began flying direct between Hong Kong and San Francisco in 1998, Wong said.

With about 160 aircraft in its fleet today, the company has more on order from Boeing and Airbus.

"In four years we will have more than 200 aircraft in the fleet," Wong said.

He said that although the aviation industry at large is under tough financial conditions, Cathay Pacific has benefited from capturing air traffic within Asia. The airline also flies between Hong Kong and India and recently acquired Dragonair, a Hong Kong-based airline that flies to 19 cities in China.

"We are rather fortunate because of the economic activity in China and India," Wong explained.

The airport museum is on the departures level of the International Terminal.