Cathay to phase out A340s and 747s

Hong Kong's all-widebody-operator Cathay Pacific is to phase out part of its fleet of Boeing 747-400s and all of its A340-300s in 2016 and 2017, as part of its fleet renewal plan. The airline announced that it intends to sell six of its B747-400Fs back to Boeing with four of them already parked. Four passenger 747-400s are also to be retired with two of them having been withdrawn from service this month.

Cathay Pacific 'Airline of the World 2014'

Widebody-only operator Cathay Pacific has been announced as the airline of the year 2014. It climbed from the sixth place last year to the top, displacing 2013's number one Qatar Airways. The World Airline Award was announced at the Farnborough Airshow by research firm Skytrax. It is one of the most high-profile awards in the aviation industry.

Cathay is the first airline to have won the award four times. It also won the title in 2003, 2005 and 2009.

Garuda Indonesia won the award for the best cabin crew, ahead of Cathay Pacific and Singapore Airlines. Singapore Airlines won the award for best first class cabin, Qatar for best business class and Korea's Asiana for best economy class cabin.

The Skytrax awards are based on a survey of 18.85 million airline passengers from around the world. Here follows the list of the top ten:
1 Cathay Pacific Airways. 2 Qatar Airways. 3 Singapore Airlines. 4 Emirates. 5 Turkish Airlines. 6 ANA All Nippon Airways. 7 Garuda Indonesia. 8 Asiana Airlines. 9 Etihad Airways. 10. Lufthansa.

Numbers one, three and four - Cathay Pacific, Singapore Airlines and Emirates - are widebody-only operators. For most of the others widebodies form a big part of their fleets.

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