Cathay Dragon
former Hong Kong airline
Hong Kong Dragon Airlines Limited (Chinese: 港龍航空公司), originally known as Dragonair until 2016 and finally Cathay Dragon (國泰港龍航空) until 2020, was a Hong Kong-based international regional airline, with its corporate headquarters and main hub at Hong Kong International Airport. In the final year before it ceased flying, the airline operated a scheduled passenger network to around 50 destinations in 14 countries and territories across Asia. Additionally, the airline had three codeshares on routes served by partner airlines. It had an all-Airbus fleet of 35 aircraft, consisting of A320s, A321s and A330s.
Cathay Dragon was a wholly owned subsidiary of Cathay Pacific, and was an affiliate member of the Oneworld airline alliance. The airline was founded on 24 May 1985, by Chao Kuang Piu, who was most recently the airline's honorary chairman. Its maiden flight departed Hong Kong for Kota Kinabalu, Sabah, Malaysia, after being granted an air operator's certificate (AOC) by the Hong Kong Government in July 1985. In 2010, Dragonair, together with its parent, Cathay Pacific, operated over 138,000 flights, carried nearly 27 million passengers and over 1.80 billion kg (4.0 billion pounds) of cargo and mail.
History
Early beginnings
The airline was established in Hong Kong on 24 May 1985, on the initiative of Chao Kuang Piu as a subsidiary of Hong Kong Macau International Investment Co. It started operations in July 1985 with a Boeing 737-200 service from Kai Tak Airport to Kota Kinabalu International Airport in Malaysia, after receiving an Air Operator's Certificate (AOC) from the Hong Kong Government.
Begin with the source’s own compact description: “Cathay Dragon” is former Hong Kong airline. The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through Cathay, Dragon and former, not as a finished interpretation.
Why this record matters
The phrase “former Hong Kong airline” supplies a clear boundary for inquiry. It also exposes the unanswered questions: who defined that boundary, when it became stable and which sources sit outside it.
Named sources, stable identifiers and responsible institutions provide the strongest route from overview to verifiable evidence. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 19, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q32436. None of the 2 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 2016, 2020, 1985 and 2010.
A concise general-reference account can conceal disagreements about scope, terminology or the weight assigned to individual sources. The source lead contains qualifying language; that uncertainty should survive quotation, summary and reuse. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
How to read it
Use the entry as an orientation point, then follow its citations and revision history. Names, dates and institutional relationships should be checked against the original record.
- Subject orientation
- Search vocabulary
- Locating named sources
The closest primary source, responsible institution and strongest cited specialist reference.
Three-step research path
- Establish the record: confirm the title “Cathay Dragon”, its source revision and the description used here.
- Expand the search: follow Cathay Dragon primary sources, Cathay Dragon archive and Cathay research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
- Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.
Questions for further research
- Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Cathay Dragon”?
- Which cited source is closest to the event, object or claim?
- What terminology or title could unlock a more precise catalogue search?
Search terms from this dossier
This entry incorporates text from “Cathay Dragon” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.