Cathay Pacific, the struggling flag carrier of Hong Kong, has just opened a new lounge in an unexpected location. Located just across the border, or ‘boundary’ as the HK government dubs it, is Shenzhen a thriving metropolis home to China’s tech sector. However, Cathay Pacific isn’t launching flights from HK to Shenzhen but instead they’re enriching the experience from Shekou Cruise Port to Hong Kong International Airport with this new lounge.

Cathay operate ferries?!

No, Cathay do not operate ferry service from Shenzhen and other cities to Hong Kong International Airport (HKIA). Instead third party operators run these service to the airport.

HKIA opened the SkyPier several years ago to connect HK to major Greater Bay Area cities including Guangzhou, Macau, Shenzhen and Zhuhai as a means to open up connections beyond just traditional airline to airline transfers. Only passengers that purchase a through ticket from one of these cities to a connecting destination can utilise the service - and this is where Cathay comes in.

As HKIA’s dominant carrier and with a large, albeit reduced post-pandemic, presence in Mainland China, Cathay Pacific can take advantage of this multi-modal connecting service to better serve people in these cities. With a more extensive network than neighbouring Shenzhen Airlines and superior service to Guangzhou-based China Southern, this opens up new opportunities for the airline.

Why open a lounge?

The rationale hasn’t been made clear by the airline, however we can make some assumptions. Shenzhen has a massive population and Shekou Port is connected to the city’s metro network, making it easy to arrive at the terminal. Investing a significant amount in a lounge presence suggests that a significant number of passengers must be originating from this location. Opening a lounge here means that the airline can hope to better attract loyal business passengers with a superior product on the ground and in the air.

What does it look like?

If you’re familiar with Cathay Pacific’s lounge design, then this will be no surprise. With liberal use of dark wood, accents of gold and liberal use of Cathay’s green colour, this looks set to be an oasis of relaxation at an otherwise busy port terminal. This lounge design will be familar to anybody who has seen their spaces at either London Heathrow or Hong Kong.

The only real difference is the views from the lounge. Instead of apron and runway, they’ve been swapped out for panoramic views across Shenzhen Bay looking towards the territory of Hong Kong.

Press releases from Cathay Pacific do not feature anything about the food and beverage offered

Who can use it?

Travellers on Cathay in First and Business, as well as the following frequent flyers with a connecting flight from HKIA:

• Cathay Diamond and Gold members on any airline

• Cathay Silver members, oneworld Emerald (BA Silver) and Sapphire (BA Gold) when flying on Cathay Pacific

Those rules seem pretty fair in my opinion, especially for Cathay Diamond and Gold members.

Making a booking from Shekou is relatively simple and requires travellers to select Shenzhen (FYG) as the departure point. The service from Shenzhen to HKIA SkyPier operate as a ‘codeshare’ but it’s not clear if Cathay’s frequent flyers will earn status points or Asia Miles on this sector.

Finally, the connecting service from Shenzhen to international destinations only appears to be live for Asian destinations ruling long haul connections out for the time being.