Ever wanted to sample Cathay Pacific’s in-flight products, but don’t have the time (or the money) to fly all the way to Hong Kong?
Well, if you live on the East Coast or West Coast, there is an easy way to do this by flying on Cathay’s 5th freedom route that operates daily between New York JFK and Vancouver.
This Fifth-freedom route is a unique “niche” route that Cathay operates and has multiple advantages: first, it can be useful for mileage runs, allowing a OneWorld loyalty member based in New York or Vancouver to make a quick-trip on a highly-rated product without sacrificing several days of travel, or having to make multiple stops to accrue the qualifying miles and/or dollars.
Secondly, it could be a nice way to break-up a journey while keeping all of your ticket information on one record. Suppose Cathay Pacific allowed a free stop-over in Vancouver en route from New York to Hong Kong over Vancouver? People could take advantage of that quite easily, and a lot of airlines have somewhat flexible fare rules that can permit this.
Finally, it’s a nice change of scene from your defacto carriers. Or, if you are a foreigner traveling abroad, if you have concerns over an airline’s safety reputation, having a 5th freedom carrier that you’re familiar with operating a route you intend to fly can be good for peace of mind.
That being said, it probably helps to define what constitutes a fifth-freedom route, and distinguish between fifth freedom routes, which refers to the two specific points which the airline flies between (outside of its home country), and fifth freedom rights, which refers to the actual, “pick-up” rights that the airline is entitled to exercise in order to transport passengers starting and terminating their journeys between those outlier points.
What are 5th-Freedom Routes?
Fifth-freedom routes are routes that a foreign airline operates between two cities outside of its home country. They used to be much more common during the Golden Age of flying, when airlines flew aircraft with limited range capabilities. Many airlines flew, “round-the-world,” routes that would originate and terminate in their home countries, but touch upon several international points making both an Eastern and Western “loop” around the world, such as United Airlines Flight 1 & 2 which started in 1995. The Westbound route, United 1, started in LAX, and flew to Hong Kong, then Delhi, then London Heathrow, then Washington Dulles before returning to LAX. United 2 started in LAX, but flew Eastbound to Dulles, Heathrow, Delhi, Hong Kong and back to LAX.
Back to the “routes” vs. “rights” discussion, the rules are that 5th-freedom routes have to have local pick-up rights in order for customers to be able to book between the two outside points. For example, you can fly Air New Zealand without ever having to travel TO New Zealand, if you need to fly between Los Angeles and London Heathrow, since ANZ has local pick-up rights on its daily service between Los Angeles and London Heathrow. However, you cannot fly Qantas between Los Angeles and New York JFK, even though Qantas operates daily between those two cities, because the carrier does not have local pick-up rights. In other words, Qantas operates to New York solely for the purpose of transporting passengers between New York and Australia, but under the assumption that Los Angeles is a purely used as a technical stop in between.
I sadly have only flown on one fifth-freedom route (which no longer exists) between Chicago and London Heathrow on Air India, back in 2006. However, there are several 5th freedom routes in the Americas, Europe, Asia and Latin America that are accessible to us, and here are some examples that you can try today.
To make it easy for you to plan, here are is a sample list of 5th freedom routes, broken down by geography, that you can use to help plan your travels. **Please note that this list excludes some intra-Africa and intra-Asian routes. Data current as of December 2016.**
North America
- Philippine Airlines: New York JFK to Vancouver
- Cathay Pacific: New York JFK to Vancouver
- Air China: Montreal to Havana
South America
- Emirates: Rio de Janeiro to Buenos Aires
- Turkish Airlines: Sao Paulo to Buenos Aires
- Qatar Airways: Sao Paulo to Buenos Aires
- Air Canada: Santiago to Buenos Aires
- KLM: Buenos Aires to Santiago
- Air France: Buenos Aires to Montevideo
Europe
- Air China: Vienna to Barcelona
- Air China: Athens to Munich
- Korean Air: Vienna to Zurich
- LAN: Madrid to Frankfurt
- Ethiopian: Stockholm to Vienna
- Emirates: Lanarca to Malta
- Emirates: Athens to Lanarca
- Air Malta: Munich to Catania
Transatlantic (North & South America)
- Singapore Airlines: New York JFK to Frankfurt
- Singapore Airlines: Houston to Manchester
- Emirates: New York JFK to Milan
- Air India: Newark to London Heathrow
- Air New Zealand: Los Angeles to London Heathrow
- Air Tahiti Nui: Los Angeles to Paris CDG
- Jet Airways: Toronto to Amsterdam
- Uzbekistan: New York JFK to Riga, Latvia
- South African Airways: Washington Dulles to Dakar, Senegal
- South African Airways: Washington Dulles to Accra, Ghana
- Air China: Madrid to Sao Paulo
- Ethiopian: Sao Paulo to Lome, Togo
- Ethiopian: Los Angeles to Dublin
- Ethiopian: Newark to Lome, Togo
- Ethiopian: Dublin to Toronto (westbound only)
- Ethiopian: Dublin to Washington Dulles (westbound only)
- Pakistan International Airlines: Manchester to New York JFK (westbound only)
Transpacific
- Air France: Los Angeles to Papeete
- Singapore Airlines: San Francisco to Hong Kong
- Singapore Airlines: Los Angeles to Seoul
- Singapore Airlines: Los Angeles to Tokyo Narita
- China Airlines: Honolulu to Tokyo Narita
- United: Manila to Koror
- United: Hong Kong to Singapore
- United: Tokyo Narita to Seoul
- Delta: Tokyo Narita to Singapore
- Delta: Tokyo Narita to Manila
- Delta: Tokyo Narita to Taipei
- Delta: Tokyo Narita to Shanghai
- Delta: Tokyo Narita to Saipan
- Delta: Tokyo Narita to Koror
Gulf
- Lufthansa: Doha to Kuwait
- Lufthansa: Bahrain to Dammam
- SWISS: Dubai to Muscat
- KLM: Bahrain to Doha
- KLM: Muscat to Abu Dhabi
Oceania
- AirAsia X: Gold Coast to Auckland
- Emirates: Auckland to Sydney
- Emirates: Auckland to Brisbane
- Emirates: Auckland to Melbourne
- Emirates: Sydney to Christchurch
- LAN: Auckland to Sydney
- China Airlines: Auckland to Brisbane
- China Airlines: Auckland to Sydney
Other Intercontinental
- EVA: Bangkok to Amsterdam
- EVA: Bangkok to London Heathrow
- EVA: Bangkok to Vienna
- Emirates: Bangkok to Sydney
- Emirates: Singapore to Melbourne
- Emirates: Singapore to Brisbane
- China Airlines: Delhi to Rome
- Royal Brunei: Dubai to London Heathrow
- Qantas: Dubai to London Heathrow
- Garuda Indonesia: Singapore to Amsterdam
- Garuda Indonesia: Singapore to London Heathrow
- British Airways: Singapore to Sydney
Tip of the hat to Fly Pointy End.com
