Dragonair Becomes Cathay Dragon

KarelXWB · Thu Jan 28, 2016 8:56 am

Cathay Pacific will rebrand its regional offshoot Dragonair as Cathay Dragon.

Quote:
The move, announced today to staff at the airline's headquarters, will underscore Dragonair's links to its highly-regarded parent.

It will include a new red-tailed livery based on the streamlined look of Cathay Pacific, which will adorn Cathay's first Airbus A350 when it takes to the skies by mid-year.

The merged brand has been on the cards since at least 2013.

Article
http://www.ausbt.com.au/cathay-pacif...rebrand-dragonair-as-cathay-dragon

[Edited 2016-01-28 00:58:18]

N14AZ · Thu Jan 28, 2016 9:02 am

Ohh, looks like:

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Click here for bigger photo!

Photo © Laszlo Fata

Motorhussy · Thu Jan 28, 2016 9:29 am

I like the subtle grey stripe down the fuselage but a shame they didn't do more with the dragon - whether by visual metaphors or allusion.

smi0006 · Thu Jan 28, 2016 9:33 am

Well that's ugly. Cathay logo is flowing, but the red lines and nothing on the fueselage are so hard.

Why do they need two brands? KA isn't an LCC is it- both CX and KA are full service? Why not just use the CX brand, and have a small note operated by KA?

chinmay17shetye · Thu Jan 28, 2016 9:35 am

Why don't they merge the Airline and have the brand as Cathay Pacific only.

covert · Thu Jan 28, 2016 9:37 am

Quoting chinmay17shetye (Reply 4):
Why don't they merge the Airline and have the brand as Cathay Pacific only.

They want to preserve the separate AOCs.

CCA · Thu Jan 28, 2016 9:50 am

A real display of how cheap Cathay Pacific is becoming and losing attention to detail.

Great example the blue (compare it to actual grey) stripe isn't on at least one of the press release pictures.

winterlight · Thu Jan 28, 2016 11:08 am

Funny how they sued Hamburg Airways for ripping-off their brushwing but they can nick Turkish's idea.

xiaotung · Thu Jan 28, 2016 11:12 am

Quoting covert (Reply 5):
They want to preserve the separate AOCs.

Is this not achievable by having CX flights operated by KA?

aerokiwi · Thu Jan 28, 2016 11:18 am

Isn't this actually promoting brand confusion - the name's are effectively merged, the livery design is near identical and the brushwing (!!!!) is used on the tailfin rather than the dragon, which is preserved at the front of the aircraft.

Ugh this rebrand gets worse and worse.

Not to mention the clumsiness of the name. Dragonair - rolls off the tongue. Cathay Dragon - urmmm, less so.

filipair · Thu Jan 28, 2016 11:18 am

This is a real shame. The KA brand was distinctive and now it becomes more "streamlined" global conglomerate than ever.

aeroflop · Thu Jan 28, 2016 11:57 am

Quoting aerokiwi (Reply 9):
Isn't this actually promoting brand confusion - the name's are effectively merged

I think that's the whole point. Kind of like Qantas and Qantas Link, Air New Zealand and Air NZ link. In the publics eyes it's the same company.

Miami · Thu Jan 28, 2016 11:58 am

New livery

shengzhurou · Thu Jan 28, 2016 1:05 pm

with the on board product of the dragonair are same as cathay, dragon isn't a lcc.. however the paint job, i can't call it red or pink or something in between, send it back to the drawing board

bjorn14 · Thu Jan 28, 2016 1:21 pm

Bad move...Cathay Pacific is generally considered a premium brand. Why dilute it with this junk?

aerokiwi · Thu Jan 28, 2016 1:23 pm

Quoting aeroflop (Reply 11):
I think that's the whole point. Kind of like Qantas and Qantas Link, Air New Zealand and Air NZ link. In the publics eyes it's the same company.

But they use a consistent livery. Not two separate logos or colours.

avek00 · Thu Jan 28, 2016 1:57 pm

Quoting bjorn14 (Reply 14):

Bad move...Cathay Pacific is generally considered a premium brand. Why dilute it with this junk?

Because CX's cinderella days are over?

Ytraveller · Thu Jan 28, 2016 2:15 pm

Funny, just last night I had read a ch aviation article on the proposal to do this. Surprised to see it announced already!

I think it looks ok. I'm happy to see the dragon maintained. But the old livery, although is was eurowhite, did have some understated elegance to it.

winginit · Thu Jan 28, 2016 2:18 pm

Quoting covert (Reply 5):
They want to preserve the separate AOCs.

Bingo. You'll find, for example, that foreign carriers can codeshare on KA into Mainland China but not CX as CX is not recognized as a mainland carrier while KA is.

KaiTak747 · Thu Jan 28, 2016 4:45 pm

Quoting bjorn14 (Reply 14):

Bad move...Cathay Pacific is generally considered a premium brand. Why dilute it with this junk?

Dragonair is a premium carrier too.

It has the same hard product as CX and probably the same onboard service, so why not make the brand reflect the level of service? I don't think this impacts CX's brand, as they are flying under different names.

Personally, I think the current Dragonair brand is very dull, and very much looking forward to the Cathay Dragon.

longhauler · Thu Jan 28, 2016 4:45 pm

Quoting bjorn14 (Reply 14):
Bad move...Cathay Pacific is generally considered a premium brand. Why dilute it with this junk?

While we on this website would agree, the reality is that the average traveller will not pay more to fly on Cathay than any other airline. The solution is what we are presently seeing. Likewise ... I was not surprised to see the announcement of 10 abreast on CX's Triples.

Quoting avek00 (Reply 16):
Because CX's cinderella days are over?

I had always thought that SQ and CX were going to be the last to bend to passenger pressure trading comfort for a cheaper seat. And now with Scoot and Dragon, so be it.

I like the idea of branding Dragonair to Cathay Dragon. Air Canada found that there was a preference for it's Rouge brand, as long as prices were the same. Passengers know that when things fall of the rails (and they do), big old AC will swoop in and clean things up. I have flown many "rescue missions" picking up passengers to avoid delays for Rouge passengers.

The same with Cathay Dragon. Passengers will assume the same safe operation as the parent company.

a380787 · Thu Jan 28, 2016 4:50 pm

Quoting longhauler (Reply 20):

I had always thought that SQ and CX were going to be the last to bend to passenger pressure trading comfort for a cheaper seat. And now with Scoot and Dragon, so be it.

I like the idea of branding Dragonair to Cathay Dragon. Air Canada found that there was a preference for it's Rouge brand, as long as prices were the same. Passengers know that when things fall of the rails (and they do), big old AC will swoop in and clean things up. I have flown many "rescue missions" picking up passengers to avoid delays for Rouge passengers.

The same with Cathay Dragon. Passengers will assume the same safe operation as the parent company.

That's a slight misunderstanding of KA. It's a regional arm of CX, not the LCC arm of it. And luckily for pax, KA doesn't operate any 777 or 787, so none of the dreadful narrow seats that plague carriers worldwide.

CXGabriel · Thu Jan 28, 2016 4:56 pm

Quoting longhauler (Reply 20):
I was not surprised to see the announcement of 10 abreast on CX's Triples.

Where's the announcement on that? Did I miss it or just speculation with so-called "inside sources?"

NH203 · Thu Jan 28, 2016 5:01 pm

Quoting KaiTak747 (Reply 19):
It has the same hard product as CX and probably the same onboard service, so why not make the brand reflect the level of service? I don't think this impacts CX's brand, as they are flying under different names.

Actually KA's J food is better than CX's. Of course, that's not very hard, given the low quality of CX's J class meals.

VCEflyboy · Thu Jan 28, 2016 5:09 pm

Cathay dragon sounds like some tacky erotic lotion found on eBay.

aviationaware · Thu Jan 28, 2016 5:58 pm

I like it, what I don't like is the decision to not print a big dragon on the fuselage.

bmibaby737 · Thu Jan 28, 2016 6:22 pm

Question: On what specific date does this rename become effective, does anyone know?

ABQopsHP · Thu Jan 28, 2016 9:53 pm

Quoting winterlight (Reply 7):

Funny how they sued Hamburg Airways for ripping-off their brushwing but they can nick Turkish's idea.

Not sure how they nicked the Turkish brand. The sweep is in opposite directions, TK has a circle, and the CX "Brushwing" has been around since the 90s. The only thing similar to me is the red background, for the KA tail.

JD CRP

cathay747 · Thu Jan 28, 2016 10:51 pm

I hate the CX re-brand/revised livery, and now I hate this.
Cathay Dragon...seriously? What idiots in the corporate
suite thinks these things up??

undertheradar · Thu Jan 28, 2016 11:21 pm

Quoting winginit (Reply 18):

+1 to that point. KA has far more presence in the PRC than CX does... hence why the 'new' Cathay Dragon has the more 'recognized' PRC red as its base colour, whilst maybe also, CX just wants to 'remind' the PRC that KA is connected to CX and not all the 'other' PRC created (oops 'related') airlines (China Southern..China eastern...'insert region' in China the list goes on. Just my observation and my opinion

TKA380 · Fri Jan 29, 2016 1:14 am

I agree, I think it looks very similar to TK to a normal person looking at the tail. For an AV geek like us I am sure they will tell them apart but many others would easily confuse them.

Erebus · Fri Jan 29, 2016 1:29 am

I'm not sure if the brushwing tail art and the "dragon" name go together.

aerokiwi · Fri Jan 29, 2016 5:07 am

Quoting Erebus (Reply 31):
I'm not sure if the brushwing tail art and the "dragon" name go together.

Let alone the bruishwing and the dragon logo itself, which if "elegance" and consistency are supposed to be the go here, raises the questions (1) which is Cathay Dragon's logo and (2) why is the dragon where the brushwing should be on the nose?

Questions that shouldn't even occur to you if this was executed correctly.

PhoenixVIP · Fri Jan 29, 2016 6:26 am

I don't see where Cathay is going with this rebrand. Here people already know that Cathay and Dragonair are considered premium brands and are very popular for flights to and from HKG. Dragonair have greater visibility in China as it has the more amount of flights in and out of China. The distinction between Cathay and Dragonair will now have been taken away but definitely will not impact on the premium branding of the product. Perhaps they are aiming at further improving the premium feel of the airline by capitalising on the greater affordability of Chinese for more costs and can gain more that way.

VCEflyboy · Fri Jan 29, 2016 8:30 am

It's official http://www.cathaypacific.com/cx/en_C...24167409&spReportId=NzI0MTY3NDA5S0

CX Flyboy · Fri Jan 29, 2016 9:02 am

Quoting PhoenixVIP (Reply 33):
I don't see where Cathay is going with this rebrand. Here people already know that Cathay and Dragonair are considered premium brands and are very popular for flights to and from HKG. Dragonair have greater visibility in China as it has the more amount of flights in and out of China. The distinction between Cathay and Dragonair will now have been taken away but definitely will not impact on the premium branding of the product. Perhaps they are aiming at further improving the premium feel of the airline by capitalising on the greater affordability of Chinese for more costs and can gain more that way.

This rebrand is about appeal to the global market, not just Mainland chinese. Dragonair is already well known there but around the world when people buy a CX ticket to China they see that they have to connect to an airline called Dragonair and they have no idea what this is, whether they are safe etc... changing the branding will make it more seamless.

NH203 · Fri Jan 29, 2016 9:22 am

Quoting CX Flyboy (Reply 35):
This rebrand is about appeal to the global market, not just Mainland chinese. Dragonair is already well known there but around the world when people buy a CX ticket to China they see that they have to connect to an airline called Dragonair and they have no idea what this is, whether they are safe etc... changing the branding will make it more seamless.

To back that up with an anecdote: I recently took a KA flight as a connection to a long haul CX service, which got my girlfriend a little worried: "Are you sure that's a safe airline? I never heard of them? Can't you fly on Cathay all the way?." After I explained that KA is wholly owned by CX and up to CX standards (well their food is even better

) all was good, but I imagine there are many more people that CX wants to reach with their growing long haul flights, who will feel safer when told that "KA is the same as CX". Dragonair is a very strong brand in mainland China, but basically everywhere else the airline is barely known, but the Cathay brand is considered to be premium.

MHG · Sat Jan 30, 2016 10:36 am

So, what´s next ?
Will we see a "Singapore Silk" ???

As much as I understand streamlining corporate identity makes sense to some extend it is more reminding me of just another attempt to keep a lower cost base in the holding and putting more pressure on CX´s staff to "keep quiet" internally but pretending both airlines being just "father and son" to the public.

Motorhussy · Sat Jan 30, 2016 11:25 am

Seriously though, they should drop both the 'Pacific' and the 'Dragon' and re-launch both simply as Cathay

infinit · Sat Jan 30, 2016 12:37 pm

Quoting aerokiwi (Reply 9):
Not to mention the clumsiness of the name. Dragonair - rolls off the tongue. Cathay Dragon - urmmm, less so.

When I first heard it, I thought it sounded like an anime (Japanese animation) character!

But I can see how it makes sense from a customer perspective. If you are booking a ticket on Cathay Pacific and youre not familiar with the brand, and say one leg is on Cathay Pacific, the other on Cathay Dragon, you get the assurance that the latter is still Cathay but you'd know its going to be a regional variant of sorts. Rather than an interline with some LCC- Dragonair might sound like that

Quoting MHG (Reply 37):
So, what´s next ?
Will we see a "Singapore Silk" ???

Eeu.. oh god no!

MHG · Sat Jan 30, 2016 1:04 pm

Quoting infinit (Reply 39):
Eeu.. oh god no!

I was just kidding ...
But you´ll never know what drives executives´s minds ...

CaliAtenza · Sat Jan 30, 2016 6:10 pm

I'm going to miss the Chinese dragon on the tail :/

XAM2175 · Sat Jan 30, 2016 9:53 pm

Quoting CX Flyboy (Reply 35):
This rebrand is about appeal to the global market... when people buy a CX ticket to China they see that they have to connect to an airline called Dragonair and they have no idea what this is

I can admit that until reading this thread I thought KA was an LCC. CX-related, but still an LCC and an airline I would not have gone out of my way to fly.

I like the livery, I don't think it's too close to TK's livery, and it lifts my opinion of the airline by associating it more closely with the CX brand.

A tick from me.

longhauler · Sun Jan 31, 2016 2:33 pm

Quoting XAM2175 (Reply 42):
I can admit that until reading this thread I thought KA was an LCC. CX-related, but still an LCC and an airline I would not have gone out of my way to fly.

I admit the same. I thought they were an LCC or higher density arm (like Scoot or Rouge) of Cathay Pacific.

And that begs the question therefore ... what is their purpose? What are they doing that Cathay Pacific could not do themselves? I mean, if you are not looking for low fare/price conscious passengers, then why not just use the Cathay Pacific brand ... it is well known and very well respected.

FlyCaledonian · Sun Jan 31, 2016 2:51 pm

Quoting CaliAtenza (Reply 41):
I'm going to miss the Chinese dragon on the tail :/

See, I'd have had the dragon on the tail (white on red), with the brush stroke after the CATHAY DRAGON titles just like on CATAHY PACIFIC aircraft. To me that would have linked the brush stroke and the airline name, helping cement the relationship with CX. As it is, on the aircraft the dragon will be next to the name but on everything else it will be the brush stroke next to the name.

lalib · Sun Jan 31, 2016 3:52 pm

Quoting FlyCaledonian (Reply 44):

KA has a dragon as a logo does CX have a logo apart from the brush stroke which are now on the tails of both CX and KA- this is the only inconsistency I see.

Apart from that I like the name and now live the lively of both KA and CX (I didnt like CX when they changed it 2 months ago)

Visually both airlines will look good together parked at HKG

LHUSA · Sun Jan 31, 2016 4:25 pm

Quoting filipair (Reply 10):
New livery

When I run out of Ambien I'll just picture Cathy's new liveries. That should do the trick! Totally blah

vr-hkg · Tue Feb 02, 2016 3:30 pm

Just got the email from CX about this. Awful name; visually confusing and quite ugly livery. Very disappointing to see Dragonair exit stage left as a distinct brand...

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