Oh Cathay Pacific, you spoil us!
Cathay Pacific celebrates 80th anniversary with retro livery
Hong Kong-based Cathay Pacific is celebrating its 80th anniversary. While the airline is promising a variety of initiatives as part of this celebration, there’s one that us aviation geeks will be especially excited about.
Specifically, the oneworld airline will be rolling out two planes in its iconic “lettuce leaf sandwich” livery:
- The Airbus A350-900 with the registration code B-LRJ has entered service as of January 6, 2026
- A Cathay Pacific Cargo Boeing 747-8 is expected to enter service as of January 24, 2026
Cathay Pacific is promising one more special livery, though hasn’t yet announced the details of which livery it will be, and on what aircraft. I can’t wait to spot these planes from the Hong Kong Airport (HKG) Sky Bridge. For that matter, I’m sure I’ll see the special 747-8 in Miami, given that Cathay Pacific Cargo frequently flies to my home airport.
Cathay Pacific’s livery evolution over the years
For some background on Cathay Pacific’s liveries, the airline launched service in 1946, with a converted Douglas DC-3, nicknamed “Betsy” (a term the airline still uses). Initially the plane transported goods between Australia and China, though the founders had bigger ambitions. They named the airline Cathay Pacific Airways, due to the belief that planes would one day cross the vast expanse of the Pacific.
There wasn’t much to the livery at the time, aside from a bare-metal body with “Cathay Pacific Airways” emblazoned in red cursive lettering on the fuselage.
In the 1960s, Cathay Pacific entered the “jet age,” with a fleet of Convair 880s, sporting a green-and-white livery. The airline name printed on the fuselage was shortened to “Cathay Pacific” in red, upper-case lettering.
Then from the 1970s until the early 1990s, Cathay Pacific adopted what was known as the “lettuce leaf sandwich” livery, on the fleet of Lockheed L-1011 TriStars and Boeing 747s. The tailfin was painted in alternating stripes of white and Brunswick green, resembling a stack of salad leaves.
Then starting in the 1990s, as Cathay Pacific’s route network expanded across Europe and North America, the airline wanted a new look anchored around its identity as Hong Kong’s home carrier. So in 1994, the airline debuted the brushwing logo, a symbol of flight rendered in a swooping calligraphic stroke, which honors its Chinese heritage. The airline also swapped Brunswick green for the elegant Cathay jade.
Then in 2015, Cathay Pacific introduced a sleeker version of this livery, removing the red stripes from the tailfin and nose, among other updates.
The “lettuce leaf sandwich” livery is almost unarguably Cathay Pacific’s most iconic one, and I can’t wait to see one of these planes in person.
That being said, the “lettuce leaf sandwich” livery was a little before my time of traveling to Asia, and my fondest memories on Cathay Pacific are from the livery before the current one. So I’m rooting for the third plane with a special livery to have that paint job (though I suspect it may instead be the livery before the “lettuce leaf sandwich” one).
Bottom line
Cathay Pacific is commemorating its 80th anniversary by painting two planes in its “lettuce leaf sandwich” livery, which was the carrier’s standard livery for around two decades, from the 1970s until the 1990s. This was really when Cathay Pacific became a global player, so it’s awesome to see the livery return.
If you’re an aviation geek, be on the lookout for an A350 in this special livery. In the coming weeks, we can also expect a cargo 747 in the special livery.
Anyone else love the “lettuce leaf sandwich” livery as much as I do?
