Liverpool England is a long way from China, which was known as "Cathay" in Europe several hundred years ago for etymological reasons that we need not concern ourselves with. Similarly, 1816 was a long time ago from now, but it was when a man named John Swire started an import export company based on textiles. In 1861 that company began to trade with China. It was to mark the beginning of a long-lived relationship that lasted until the Communist revolution in 1949, but continued in what was then the British ruled island of Hong Kong.

The businesses in Asia which were conducted by what is now known as the Swire Group eventually went far beyond just textiles, and included airlines.

Cathay Pacific was founded in September 1946 by the partnership of an Australian and an American, along with a few other shareholders. The company's predecessor had been based in Shanghai but was subject to a few shakedowns by the then Republic of China government which felt that it was entitled to a piece of the action. As a result, the business relocated to British ruled Hong Kong, and Cathay Pacific was formed. In 1948, there was a major restructure which saw the Swire Group become the largest shareholder, as indeed they are today with 42% of the shares. Air China holds a 28.2% stake since control of Hong Kong passed back to China in 1997, and it would probably be difficult to do business in Hong Kong without a Chinese partner these days.

Cathay Pacific aircraft now use the registration code for China. B- is the registration prefix for China in general. For mainland China, this is followed by a numeric code. For Hong Kong, it's an alphabetic code.

This is Airbus A350-1000 (1041 variant) B-LXQ, operated by the aforementioned Cathay Pacific. It arrived in Sydney from Hong Kong at 20:38 the previous evening as flight CPA139, and would return at 15:13 this afternoon as CPA100.