Sales launch HK airlines on brand new flight path

A HALF century of British domination over Hong Kong's aviation industry has been broken with a deal struck for two mainland companies to take sizeable stakes in the Swire group's two highly-successful airlines. In a combined deal that is worth $8.27 billion, the state-owned China National Aviation Corporation said it would buy 35.96 per cent of Hong Kong Dragon Airlines. And the mainland-backed Citic Pacific has said it will increase its stake in Cathay Pacific Airways from 10 per cent to 25 per cent.

Citic, staged a U-turn, having earlier said it would prefer to focus its aviation efforts on Dragonair than Cathay.