Hong Kong’s Cathay Pacific rebrands Dragonair subsidiary in 2016 – from the SCMP archive

This article was first published on January 27, 2016Exit the Dragon­air as Cathay rebrandsby Sijia JiangCathay Pacific group is likely to announce a rebrand­ing of its Dragon­air sub­si­di­ary as “Cathay Dragon” as the com­pany seeks to strengthen its cor­por­ate iden­tity.The idea to strengthen the sis­ter air­line’s asso­ci­ation with the premium air­line Cathay Pacific Air­ways has been under dis­cus­sion for a few months, sources famil­iar with the mat­ter told the South China Morn­ing Post.Cathay’s man­ager of cor­por­ate com­mu­nic­a­tions, Car­o­lyn Leung, declined to com­ment on whether the com­pany had any rebrand­ing plans for Dragon­air.“Fol­low­ing the suc­cess­ful launch of Cathay Pacific’s new brand ethos and refreshed cor­por­ate iden­tity, we have been review­ing Dragon­air’s over­all brand pro­pos­i­tion. We will provide more inform­a­tion as appro­pri­ate.”A Dragonair plane flies past the control tower at Chek Lap Kok Airport on October 17, 2004. Photo: SCMPThe move would put an end to the Dragon­air name which was foun­ded by tex­tile mag­nate Chow Kuang Piu in 1985. The air­line was acquired by Cathay in 2006 fol­low­ing a major share­hold­ing realign­ment involving Cathay’s par­ent Swire Pacific and the Air China Group. Dragon­air, which has con­tin­ued to oper­ate as a sep­ar­ate air­line within the group with its own visual iden­tity fea­tur­ing a red dragon, mainly flies to main­land China and else­where in Asia. Its fares are cheaper than Cathay. Sixty per cent of its pas­sen­gers hold Hong Kong or main­land Chinese pass­ports accord­ing to the com­pany.