28 October 2019 © David Eyre
Perth Airport and Cathay Pacific tonight celebrated the first visit to Perth by the Airbus A350-1000, operated by B-LXA on the daily CX171/CX170 service from/to Hong Kong.
Cathay is the first airline to operate the A350-1000 to Australia, upgrading this late night service from the A350-900 to the larger A350-1000.
The other Cathay Pacific morning service to Perth, the 3 times weekly CX133/CX142, is still operated by the older and smaller Airbus A330-300.
CX171 Hong Kong to Perth
The first A350-1000 flight to Perth, flight CX171, operated by B-LXA, pushed back from Gate 23 at Hong Kong’s Terminal 1 at 4:11pm local time on Sunday 27 October 2019, departing 1 hour and 6 minutes late. The aircraft took off from Hong Kong’s runway 07R at 4:33pm.
B-LXA headed south, passing over Borneo, Lombok, and Karratha, reaching a cruise altitude of 39,000 feet and landed on Perth Airport’s runway 21 at 11:42pm, and parked at bay 151 at Terminal 1 International at 11:48pm, a total flight time of 7 hours 37 minutes, arriving 55 minutes late.
CX170 Perth to Hong Kong
B-LXA was on the ground for about 80 minutes before operating the return flight CX170 back to Hong Kong in the early hours of Monday morning.
CX170 pushed back from bay 151 at 1:07am on Monday 28 October 2019 (57 minutes late, due to its late arrival into Perth), taking off from Perth’s runway 21 at 1:21am.
The aircraft flew north, passing a little east of Barrow Island, over Bali, Borneo, reaching a maximum altitude of 40,000 feet. It landed on Hong Kong’s runway 07L at 8:22am and parked at Terminal 1 at 8:26am (41 minutes late), after a flight time of 7 hours 19 minutes.
B-LXA history
B-LXA was the first A350-1000 for Cathay Pacific and was first flown on 3 May 2018 at Toulouse, France with test registration F-WZGV and was delivered direct from Toulouse to Hong Kong on 19-20 June 2018.
Cathay was the second airline in the world to become an A350-1000 operator when it took delivery of B-LXA.
Cathay’s Airbus A350-1000
Cathay’s Airbus A350-1000 carries up to 334 passengers in a three-class configuration, comprising 46 business class seats in a 1-2-1 layout; 32 premiums economy at 2-4-2 layout and 256 in economy with 3-3-3 layout.
This is 54 more seats than the airline’s 280-seat Airbus A350-900 (38 business, 28 premium economy and 214 economy), and 83 more seats than its 251-seat A330-300s (39 business, 21 premium economy and 191 economy). It is also 4 more seats than Cathay’s Boeing 777-300ER, with a greater proportion of business seats
