Cathay Pacific was founded by an American Roy C Farrell and Australian Sydney H de Kantzow in Hong Kong on September 24th, 1946. The company began to operate passenger flights to Manila, Bangkok, Singapore and Shanghai. In 1948, one of the Hong Kong’s leading trading companies Butterfield & Swire (as know as The Swire Group today) took a 45% share of the company and became fully responsible for the management of Cathay Pacific. (52% owned by Swire in 2010) (Cathay Pacific,2010b)