The Cathay

Coordinates: 1°17′57.5″N 103°50′51.5″E / 1.299306°N 103.847639°E / 1.299306; 103.847639

The Cathay is a mixed-use 17-storey cinema, shopping mall and apartment building located at Handy Road and Mount Sophia in the Museum Planning Area of Singapore. Owned and managed by Cathay Organisation, the building originally opened in 1939 as Cathay Building. In 2000, it closed for redevelopment and reopened as The Cathay in March 2006. The building incorporates elements of the old Cathay Building, including its facade which is conserved as a national monument.

Gallery

The Cathay Theatre in Singapore, 1945

The Cathay Theatre in Singapore, 1945

The Cathay Building in Singapore, 1945

The Cathay Building in Singapore, 1945

See also

References

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Cathay Pacific

Cathay Pacific (Chinese: 國泰航空) (SEHK: 0293) is the flag carrier of Hong Kong, with its head office and main hub located at Hong Kong International Airport. The airline's operations include scheduled passenger and cargo services to 200 destinations in 52 countries worldwide, codeshares, and joint ventures, with a fleet of wide-body aircraft, consisting of Airbus A330, Airbus A340, Boeing 747 (which are beginning to be retired) and Boeing 777 equipment. Its wholly owned subsidiary, Dragonair, operates to 44 destinations in the Asia-Pacific region from its Hong Kong base. In 2010, Cathay Pacific and Dragonair carried nearly 27 million passengers and over 1.8 million tonnes of cargo and mail.

The airline was founded on 24 September 1946 by Australian Sydney H. de Kantzow and American Roy C. Farrell, with each man putting up HK$1 to register the airline. The airline made the world's first non-stop transpolar flight flying over the North Pole in July 1998, which was also the maiden flight to arrive at the then new Hong Kong International Airport. The airline celebrated its 60th anniversary in 2006; and as of October 2009, its major shareholders are Swire Pacific and Air China. It is reciprocally one of the major shareholders of Air China. Cathay Pacific currently holds the title of the world's third largest airline, measured in terms of market capitalisation, according to the International Air Transport Association. In 2010, Cathay Pacific became the world's largest international cargo airline, along with main hub Hong Kong International Airport as the world's busiest airport in terms of cargo traffic.

Hong Kong

Hong Kong (香港; "Fragrant Harbour"), officially Hong Kong Special Administrative Region of the People's Republic of China, is an autonomous territory on the southern coast of China at the Pearl River Estuary and the South China Sea. Hong Kong is known for its skyline and deep natural harbour. It has a land area of 1104 km² and shares its northern border with Guangdong Province of Mainland China. With around 7.2 million inhabitants of various nationalities, Hong Kong is one of the world's most densely populated metropolises.

After the First Opium War (1839–42), Hong Kong became a British colony with the perpetual cession of Hong Kong Island, followed by Kowloon Peninsula in 1860 and a 99-year lease of the New Territories from 1898. Hong Kong remained under British control for about a century until the Second World War, when Japan occupied the colony from December 1941 to August 1945. After the Surrender of Japan, the British resumed control. In the 1980s, negotiations between the United Kingdom and the China resulted in the 1984 Sino-British Joint Declaration, which provided for the transfer of sovereignty of Hong Kong on 30 June 1997. The territory became a special administrative region of China with a high degree of autonomy on 1 July 1997 under the principle of one country, two systems. Disputes over the perceived misapplication of this principle have contributed to popular protests, including the 2014 Umbrella Revolution.

Business class

Business class is a travel class available on many commercial airlines and rail lines, known by brand names which vary by airline or rail company. In the airline industry, it was originally intended as an intermediate level of service between economy class and first class, but many airlines now offer business class as the highest level of service, having eliminated first class seating. Business class is distinguished from other travel classes by the quality of seating, food, drinks, ground service and other amenities. Full business class is usually denoted 'J' or 'C' with schedule flexibility, but can be many other letters depending on circumstances.

Airlines

History

Airlines began separating full-fare and discounted economy class passengers in the late 1970s. In 1976, KLM introduced a Full Fare Facilities (FFF) service for its full fare economy class passengers, which allowed them to sit at the front of the economy cabin immediately behind first class, and this concept was quickly copied by several other airlines including Air Canada. Both United Airlines and Trans World Airlines experimented with a similar three-class concept in 1978, but abandoned it due to negative reactions from discount economy class travelers who felt that amenities were being taken away from them. United also cited the difficulty of tracking which passengers should be seated in which section of the economy cabin on connecting flights.American Airlines also began separating full-fare economy passengers from discounted economy passengers in 1978, and offered open middle seats for full-fare passengers.

Airbus A340

The Airbus A340 is a long-range, four-engine, wide-body commercial passenger jet airliner developed and produced by Airbus. The A340 was assembled at Toulouse, France. It seats up to 375 passengers in the standard variants and 440 in the stretched -600 series. Depending on the model, it has a range of between 6,700 to 9,000 nautical miles (12,400 to 16,700 km; 7,700 to 10,400 mi). The A340 is similar in design to the twin-engine Airbus A330 with which it was concurrently designed. Its distinguishing features are four high-bypass turbofan engines and three-bogie main landing gears.

The A340 was manufactured in four fuselage lengths. The initial variant, A340-300, which entered service in 1993, measured 59.39 metres (194.8 ft). The shorter -200 was developed next, and the A340-600 was a 15.91 metres (52.2 ft) stretch of the -200. The -600 was developed alongside the shorter A340-500, which would become the longest-range commercial airliner until the arrival of the Boeing 777-200LR. The two initial models were powered by the CFM56-5C, rated at 151 kilonewtons (34,000 lbf), while Rolls-Royce held exclusive powerplant rights to the extended-range and heavier -500 and -600 models, through the 267-kilonewton (60,000 lbf) Rolls-Royce Trent 500. The initial A340-200 and -300 variants share the fuselage and wing of the A330, while the -500 and -600 are longer and have larger wings.