en.Wedoany.com Reported - Cathay Pacific will launch a direct flight from Hong Kong to Almaty in the first quarter of 2027, becoming the only airline operating a non-stop service between Hong Kong and Kazakhstan, thereby entering the Central Asian market.

As a member of the Oneworld alliance, the airline plans to use Airbus A330-300 aircraft to operate three weekly flights between Hong Kong International Airport and Almaty International Airport. The announcement of the route was made during a visit to Kazakhstan by a delegation led by John Lee Ka-chiu, Chief Executive of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region, reflecting Cathay Pacific's intention to strengthen connectivity with countries participating in China's Belt and Road Initiative.

Lavinia Lau, Chief Customer and Commercial Officer of Cathay Pacific, stated that Central Asia is a strategically important region for the Belt and Road Initiative, offering immense business opportunities. As Hong Kong's home-based hub airline, Cathay Pacific shares the same interest as the Hong Kong SAR government in enhancing connectivity with this emerging market.

This new route will become Cathay Pacific's first destination in Central Asia. Currently, there are no direct flights between Kazakhstan and Hong Kong, but flight services between Kazakhstan and Mainland China have grown rapidly over the past year. According to data from the OAG Schedules Analyser, capacity between Kazakhstan and Mainland China during the 2026 Northern Hemisphere summer is expected to reach approximately 1.08 million two-way seats, up from 728,800 seats a year earlier. The number of direct routes between the two regions has increased from 13 in the same period in 2025 to 20 in June 2026.

New routes include Air Astana's flights from Almaty to Shanghai Pudong and from Guangzhou to Astana, while its low-cost subsidiary FlyArystan will launch new routes from Aktau to Urumqi and from Almaty to Xi'an at the end of this month. Cathay Pacific stated that the Kazakhstan route follows the launch of flights to Urumqi in Xinjiang, a market that serves as a gateway between China and Central Asia. OAG data shows that Air Astana previously operated the Almaty–Hong Kong route before the pandemic, but it has been suspended since 2020.

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