Cathay celebrates 60 years with new range

Emily Pacey

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Cathay Pacific has introduced an exclusive range of luxury duty-free items to commemorate its 60th anniversary

A limited-edition watch by Swiss watchmaker IWC, a lady's pen from Aigner featuring 60 diamonds, a Tasaki necklace of 60 pearls, Peninsula and Cathay Pacific co-branded pralines and a special bottle of Alexander Grappa—featuring a glass model of the airline's first aircraft inside it—are some of the luxury items that will be listed on board Cathay over the coming year. The airline is also producing limited-edition scale models of aircraft from its fleet and a range of travel bags.

Cathay Pacific inflight sales and logistics manager Cindy Lam told RavenFox.com: "Two key drivers that always stimulate inflight purchase are exclusivity and limited edition. Passengers look for items that they cannot find on the ground, and those with limited quantity are even more attractive. The 60th anniversary range is a limited edition exclusive to Cathay, so will be popular among our travellers. The products also have varying price points ranging from $24-4,080, so there should be something suitable for anyone who would like to obtain a memento of this special occasion."

She added: "Besides achieving strong sales, we hope that this special range will enhance the image of our product catalogue Discover the Shop. It will show passengers that the products we offer are unique, interesting, elegant and of excellent duty-free shopping value.  We hope passengers will recognise that our inflight sales service is a contributing part to our reputation of being voted Best Airline of the Year in 2006 by Air Transport World."

All the products will be available inflight except for the IWC watch which is priced at HK$31,800 ($4,098) and must be pre-ordered online by passengers before their departure.

In 2005 Cathay achieved 32% growth in inflight sales compared to 2004, an increase it attributed to the introduction of a trained sales crew on flights, the launch of the pre-ordering system on its website and the overhaul of its Discover the Shop catalogue. The airline is supplied by concessionaire Inflight Sales Group.