Cathay hosted its first Inter-School Aviation Challenge Cup on January 25, 2026, at the Hong Kong Palace Museum, bringing together secondary school students from across the city for a live aviation knowledge competition. The event marks the airline’s latest effort to cultivate interest in the industry among young people.
Christian Alliance S. C. Chan Memorial College emerged as the inaugural champion after four preliminary rounds and a final showdown. The winning team earned a place in the Cathay I Can Fly Youth Academy and a trip to Adelaide focused on aviation education and cross-cultural exchange.
“We feel extremely thrilled and heartened to have been named the winner,” the winning team said after the competition. “This truly feels like a dream come true, and we’re proud that all our hard work has paid off.”
The competition format combined traditional quiz elements with a hands-on aircraft building challenge for teams that didn’t advance to the finals. St. Joseph’s College won the plate competition, which judged participants on aircraft performance, geometry, structure, livery design, and teamwork.
From online platform to live competition
The 16 competing schools qualified through AeroQuiz, a web-based aviation knowledge platform launched by Cathay and the Hong Kong Youth Aviation Academy in June 2025. Schools with the highest average student scores on the platform earned spots in the live competition.
Since its launch, Cathay said that AeroQuiz has attracted more than 760 participants, including over 200 secondary school students from approximately 90 schools across Hong Kong. The platform remains open to the general public alongside its dedicated secondary school stream.
Finalists who didn’t win the championship received round-trip flight tickets to Asian destinations within Cathay’s network and flight simulator experiences. The top three teams gained priority access to the next edition of the I Can Fly Youth Academy.
Captain Lawrence Wong, Chief Flight Standards of the Civil Aviation Department, who attended as guest of honor, emphasized the industry’s need for talent development.
“The Cathay Inter-School Aviation Challenge Cup provides a valuable platform for young people to deepen their understanding of the aviation industry through reading and an interactive quiz format, helping to build a strong foundation for those aspiring to join the civil aviation sector in the future,” Wong said.
Broader youth engagement strategy
The competition sits within a larger framework of youth development initiatives that Cathay has been building over two decades. Originally launched in 2003, the I Can Fly program has become the carrier’s flagship youth engagement effort.
In 2025 alone, the program reached approximately 1,400 young people across Hong Kong, a significant scale of outreach as the city faces demographic challenges that threaten its workforce pipeline. Hong Kong’s aging population and declining birth rate have raised concerns across industries about maintaining adequate talent pools for specialized sectors like aviation.
Lavinia Lau, Cathay’s Chief Customer and Commercial Officer, who hosted the event, said the airline is committed to making aviation education “more engaging, accessible and rewarding” for young people.
“By making aviation education more engaging, accessible and rewarding, initiatives like AeroQuiz and CISACC provide young people with a platform to build confidence, broaden their horizons and pursue their ambitions,” Lau said.
The airline plans to expand the competition into the Greater Bay Area and establish an annual cup format, allowing students to return and compete in subsequent years. The second edition of CISACC will take place later in 2026 as a defendable cup, with all schools encouraged to requalify through the AeroQuiz platform.
Industry-wide collaboration
The Civil Aviation Department has worked alongside local airlines, the Government Flying Service, training institutions, and aviation youth groups to develop talent across flying, engineering, maintenance, and aviation management through various training programs.
Captain Patrick Lau, Chairman of the Hong Kong Youth Aviation Academy, attended the event alongside other aviation industry representatives, reflecting the collaborative approach to youth development in the sector.
As Cathay enters its 80th anniversary year in 2026, the airline indicated it plans to launch additional community initiatives and partnerships, though specific details were not disclosed.
Together, AeroQuiz, CISACC, and the I Can Fly program form what the airline describes as “an interconnected suite of youth development initiatives” aimed at building Hong Kong’s next generation of aviation professionals.
For the 16 teams that competed in the inaugural challenge, the event represented both a test of their aviation knowledge and a potential pathway into an industry that continues to seek young talent despite ongoing workforce pressures.