After nearly four years, last COVID-era plane stored in outback takes off

It’s the end of an era for Cathay Pacific – and it’s a happy one.

Nearly four years after sending a significant chunk of its fleet into storage at Alice Springs due to COVID-19, the last of Cathay’s grounded planes takes off on Thursday.

Cathay Pacific had a total of 76 planes stored at Alice Springs at the height of the pandemic.Credit: Getty Images

For the airline, it marks the end of its pandemic chapter and the chance to look forward to its coming 80th anniversary in 2026.

For Alice Springs, it’s a line in the red sand, too.

You might have seen the extraordinary photos (like the one above) showing rows of commercial aircraft parked in the middle of the Australian desert as COVID caused major disruption to life generally, but specifically, in this instance, to the world aviation industry, grounding the vast majority of passenger flights for months on end.

The photos might have looked peaceful (eerily so, even). But the seeming still silence belied what was really happening on the ground.

Cathay Pacific aircraft grounded at Hong Kong’s airport at the start of the pandemic.Credit: AP

Those planes had been sent to the Alice Springs operational base of Asia Pacific Aircraft Storage (APAS) for the duration of their pandemic hiatus – the low-humidity desert conditions ideal for keeping stationary planes in the best shape possible. But, far from being mothballed and left alone, APAS was putting more than 3500 hours a week into maintaining the planes so they’d eventually be able to take flight once more.

The various airlines had their own crews working there as well.

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 last Cathay Pacific plane at Alice Springs, prior to departing on Thursday.

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.

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”.

An engineer works on the Airbus A330 to prepare it for resumption of flying.

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.

New seats, including reading lights, in premium economy.Credit:

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.

The Aria Suite in business class.Credit:

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