Cathay Pacific Permanently Closes The Bridge Business Lounge in Hong Kong

The Bridge business class lounge was one of Cathay Pacific’s many lounges at Hong Kong International Airport. It along with other lounges in the Cathay Pacific network were closed when the COVID-19 pandemic hit in early 2020. The closure, of course, was supposed to be a temporary one, until travel resumes and international flights return.

Fast forward a year and a half later, Hong Kong is still largely closed as it maintains one of the strictest entry restriction and quarantine protocols in the world.

According to a email sent by Cathay Pacific’s Marco Polo Club today, The Bridge lounge will now be permanently closed:

Permanent closure of The Bridge at Hong Kong International Airport

Having been temporarily closed due to the reduced flight schedule, The Bridge lounge at Terminal 1 of Hong Kong International Airport will now be closed permanently. Please visit our Lounges page or check with our airport staff for the most up-to-date information on available lounges.

This will forever remain as close as I got to go inside The Bridge lounge at HKG

Upon checking the Cathay Pacific website, the webpage for The Bridge has indeed been taken down and all mentioning of it has been removed. You can still access the Google cache URL dated July 6, 2021 here:

https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:vllxg2ugAlAJ:https://www.cathaypacific.com/cx/en_CN/destinations/lounges/hong-kong-international-airport-lounges/the-bridge.accessibility.html+&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=ca

Screenshot of Cathay Pacific's The Bridge webpage from Google cache

Sadly, like all other Cathay Pacific lounges, I never had the pleasure to visit before COVID-19 hit. When I will finally be able to visit the many Cathay lounges in HKG, The Bridge will not be one of them.

This perhaps comes at no surprise due to the low passenger volume in HKG over the past 18 months. Cathay Pacific has taken a huge hit as travel to Hong Kong dwindled. Losing The Bridge lounge is probably acceptable due to the number of lounges the airline still has at HKG airport.

For now, according to its website, all the remaining Cathay Pacific lounges in Hong Kong are still listed as temporarily closed until further notice:

First Class Lounges

  • The Wing, First
  • The Pier, First

Business Class Lounges

  • The Wing, Business
  • The Pier, Business
  • The Deck
There is no telling how Cathay Pacific will come out of the other side of the COVID-19 pandemic once it is over and travel resumes to normal. But for now, it appears the airline is willing to trim its lounge portfolio permanently in order to cut costs.

Kevin