Following absolute scenes on the tarmac at Hong Kong airport, with planes stopped nose to tail as aviation ground to a halt in early 2020, Cathay Pacific needed to act quickly – the typhoon season was approaching. It was the first airline to identify APAS as a viable option for storing aircraft. It sent its first planes there in July 2020, eventually dispatching a total of 76 to the Red Centre.

The Cathay Pacific A330 that was the first plane to arrive is also the last to leave, after 1410 days in the outback. It’s also the final plane to depart that had been stored at APAS due to the pandemic.

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At the height of the pandemic, APAS had 152 aircraft in its care for airlines Cebu Pacific, Singapore Airlines Group (Singapore Airlines and Scoot), Cathay Pacific (Cathay, Hong Kong Express and the now-defunct Cathay Dragon), and many major lessors. (Qantas opted to store its planes in California’s Mojave desert during the pandemic, as it has maintenance crews permanently based in Los Angeles, a 2.5-hour drive away.)

Tom Vincent, managing director of APAS, says it’s not at all a bittersweet moment. “We’re just really pleased to see Cathay have all their aircraft back to operation after the major impact COVID-19 had on CX, the entire aviation industry, and all of us as individuals. It represents a return to normality.”

(APAS is currently looking after 12 non-COVID groundings, many of them Airbus A320neos due to issues with the Pratt & Whitney engines.)

But the Cathay A330 won’t just head straight into schedules. Cathay’s general manager of engineering operations, Robert Taylor, says reactivation is a bigger challenge than the storage. Each individual aircraft required six months of lead time, “working with Airbus or Boeing to formulate all the reactivation tasks”.

With its own team of five engineers working alongside more than 100 APAS engineers and mechanics, “we had to get the aircraft safe to fly out,” says Taylor.

“It took a lot of maintenance. Between periodic checks and the reactivation, it consumed about 800,000 hours in Alice Springs working on the aircraft, so a huge amount of complex tasks.”

And that was just to get the aircraft to hangars in China. That’s where the final A330 is now going, following its stablemates in order to get the final, thorough once-over before any passengers set foot on it again.

Following the last flight, the Cathay team based in Alice Springs will spend the next couple of months finishing their activity on-site and preparing for their own flight home.

Meanwhile, the airline has also just debuted new business and premium economy cabins and refreshed economy, with the new designs being rolled out progressively on its Boeing 777-300ER aircraft this year.

The new premium economy has a seat with a generous 40-inch (102cm) pitch, leather headrest, cushions, footrest, privacy wings with a reading light next to the headrest, a 15.6-inch (40cm) ultra-high-definition screen with Bluetooth audio streaming, as well as clever storage solutions for personal items. The premium economy cabin also has two dedicated toilets.

Business class introduces the “Aria Suite”. It features a large lie-flat bed, personal lighting that can be customised from any seat position, smart stowage, high-speed charging ports and wireless charging stations.

It has a wrap-around seat design, privacy door and sliding partition between seats. And if you’re not a fan of queuing for the loo, you can check occupancy using your widescreen TV.

Mood lighting is extended to all cabins.

There’s also been a food and beverage overhaul, with first and business class passengers being served dishes from Michelin-starred Hong Kong restaurants Duddell’s, Louise and Rosewood.

See cathaypacific.com