Cathay quadruples inflight entertainment offering

A big boost to Cathay Pacific’s inflight entertainment means customers can now fly non-stop around the world 45 times without watching the same thing twice. The Hong Kong-based airline is boosting the content on its entertainment system four-fold and says passengers can look forward to more newly released movies, sports coverage, complete boxsets and Asian content. It has also recently made available live coverage of sports events to allow passengers to follow their favorite games. READ: JetBlue, Norwegian to link networks with promise of cheaper fares The airline has partnered with channel Sport 24 to offer customers on its A350 aircraft live coverage which this month includes the Rugby World Cup and next year will feature the Tokyo Olympics. When it comes to films, a new agreement with streaming service and independent entertainment film specialist MUBI will give passengers access to remastered classics and films that didn’t make it to the local cinema. The carrier is also one of the first to offer multi-season box sets that allow passengers to binge on their favorite series. It also boasts one of the biggest airline libraries of Asian content that includes specially curated collections compiled by renowned celebrities and entertainment experts. “Our passengers are always telling us how much they enjoy having high-quality entertainment when they travel, so weʼre delighted to be giving them so much more new, exciting content to explore,’’ said Cathay manager customer experience and design Vivian Lo. Pro-democracy protests in Hong Kong have had a serious impact on Cathay's traffic and prompted it to make capacity changes on some routes. It now plans to slightly reduced capacity in the 2019 winter season as opposed to its original plan of more than 6 percent growth over the period Figures for August showed a year-on-year fall of 11.3 percent in the combined passenger numbers at Cathay Pacific and Cathay Dragon. The passenger load factor also fell by 7.2 percentage points to 79.9 percent. The airline said overall tourist arrivals in Hong Kong in August were nearly half what they usually were in what was traditionally a strong summer month. Inbound traffic was down 38 percent while outbound fell 12 percent.