CATHAY PACIFIC: Where are their planes stored?

I started my next trip yesterday by heading to Alice Springs from Sydney.

As we taxied our way to the airport terminal, we could see the Alice Springs plane storage facility with an overwhelming quantity of Cathay Pacific planes, plus some Singapore Airlines and a few others whose livery seems familiar, but I can’t quite put my finger on.

Maybe you, dear reader, have better pattern recognition than I do and can identify some of the other airlines. I think they are mainly Asian and Pacific airlines and include Cathay, Singapore, Scoot, Fiji Air and Cebu Pacific – according to a BBC story in 2020. According to that report, the facility has storage for up to around 200 aircraft.

2PAXfly Takeout

This is another timely reminder to wear your seatbelt when seated. Holding you close to your seat will protect you from the sort of injuries sustained on this flight, when unsecured passengers flew to the ceiling of the aircraft, and then came crashing down once the ‘drop’ ceased.

The hope will be that this is an anomaly – a ‘freak accident’ in casual parlance. If it is a systemic error either mechanical or electronic, then this is a larger concern for the airlines that fly Boeing Dreamliner 787 aircraft. Let’s hope it isn’t. If it is, it will pile on the woes to Boeing’s existing stack.

Alice Springs Airport is harbouring a squadron of aircraft capacity across a bunch of airlines. The majority seem to be Cathay Pacific, by far, which doesn’t auger well for the airline. For each plane, how much does storage cost, and what earning potential is the airline losing by having them stored here and not in the air?