Cathay Pacific is widening the runway for young dreamers across Asia and the Pacific. With China formally stepping into the spotlight alongside Singapore, Australia, Indonesia, and Vietnam, the airline’s long-running I Can Fly youth initiative is evolving into a powerful cross-border platform for travel education, aviation awareness, and social impact. As the programme enters its third decade, it is being reimagined as a regional incubator for the next generation of travellers, innovators, and aviation professionals.
A Flagship Programme Takes Flight Across Borders
Launched in Hong Kong in 2003, I Can Fly began as a community programme that paired aviation know-how with social service for local secondary students with a passion for flight. Over the past 20 years it has quietly grown into one of the airline industry’s most sustained youth development efforts, graduating more than 4,400 participants and inspiring many to pursue careers in aviation.
Under the guidance of Cathay pilots and staff volunteers, students typically gain behind-the-scenes access to airport operations, maintenance hangars, cargo terminals, and inflight service facilities. Classroom sessions on aviation theory are woven together with team-building exercises and community projects, giving teenagers both technical insight and a grounding in social responsibility. The model has proved compelling enough that Cathay country teams have adapted it in markets such as the Chinese mainland, Singapore, Australia, Indonesia, Vietnam, Canada, the United States, and Thailand.
What began as a Hong Kong-centric initiative is now becoming an increasingly interconnected regional ecosystem. With China joining Singapore, Australia, Indonesia, and Vietnam as key pillars, Cathay is framing I Can Fly not just as a youth outreach scheme, but as a strategic bridge between fast-growing travel markets and the aviation careers that will sustain them.
China Steps Up: New Youth Aviation Fund and Cross‑Border Training
The most striking recent development has come in the Chinese mainland, where Cathay has deepened its commitment with a new philanthropic collaboration. In Beijing, the airline and the China Soong Ching Ling Foundation have launched the Aviation Dream Youth Development Fund, a dedicated public welfare fund designed to support aviation education and cultural exchange for young people from the mainland and Hong Kong.
The fund aims to create hands-on projects that immerse students in the realities of modern aviation, from airport operations and flight safety to sustainability and technology. Just as importantly, it is designed to foster a shared sense of identity and understanding between young people on both sides of the border, using aviation as the common language. Exchange visits, joint workshops, and mentoring programmes will allow participants to experience each other’s cities, campuses, and workplaces.
This dovetails with the broader evolution of I Can Fly into the I Can Fly Youth Academy, a structured training track that combines classroom learning, site visits, and intensive aviation training. The latest programme schedule includes recruitment through early 2026, followed by two weeks of training split between Hong Kong and the Chinese mainland, and an overseas component in Adelaide. For mainland Chinese students with an eye on aviation or travel careers, this represents a tangible pathway from curiosity to competence.
From Hong Kong to Adelaide: Australia’s Role in Youth Aviation Education
Australia has long been an important training ground for Cathay. The airline’s cadet pilots continue to receive core flight training at specialist academies there, and I Can Fly has gradually tapped into this infrastructure. In recent editions, top-performing students from Hong Kong have travelled to Flight Training Adelaide to experience the life of a cadet pilot, sit in simulators, and in some cases take the controls of a light aircraft under instructor supervision.
These experiential trips have now become a signature capstone of the programme. For many students, they offer a first journey beyond their home region, combining the thrill of international travel with a structured taste of professional flight training. The forthcoming I Can Fly Youth Academy Adelaide trip, slated for mid 2026, is expected to welcome another cohort of standout participants from Hong Kong and the mainland.
Australia’s involvement underscores how I Can Fly is no longer confined to classroom talks or local airport tours. By embedding real-world aviation environments into the programme, Cathay is turning the skies above Australia into an open-air classroom, giving Asian youth a chance to test their aspirations against the demands of actual cockpit procedures and airline operations.
Singapore, Indonesia and Vietnam: Rising Hubs for Young Travellers
Beyond Greater China and Australia, Southeast Asia has emerged as a critical front for travel education and youth empowerment. Singapore, Indonesia, and Vietnam are fast-rising aviation and tourism markets, and Cathay has identified them as strategic locations to cultivate the next generation of travellers and aviation professionals.
Singapore’s status as a regional air hub and education powerhouse makes it a natural base for localised I Can Fly activities, from airport immersion days to talks by aviation engineers and airline managers. In Indonesia and Vietnam, booming outbound travel demand and strong interest in STEM disciplines create fertile ground for programmes that demystify how aircraft, airports, and global route networks really work.
Cathay’s wider network position strengthens this agenda. The airline connects secondary cities and major gateways across Southeast Asia to its Hong Kong hub, offering students from places like Jakarta, Denpasar, Hanoi, and Ho Chi Minh City a direct window into one of the world’s busiest international aviation crossroads. Local I Can Fly initiatives can be paired with visits to Hong Kong or the Chinese mainland, exposing participants to a scale of aviation activity that is difficult to replicate solely within their home markets.
Reformatting for a New Generation: I Can Fly 2025 and Beyond
As travel rebounds and student expectations evolve, Cathay has moved to modernise the I Can Fly experience. The 2025 relaunch introduces a refreshed format that revolves around four pillars: Education, Discovery, Exploration, and Social Service. Rather than a one-off course, the programme is now a year-long journey that touches more than 2,000 young people aged 10 to 18.
The revamped structure begins with Aviation Explorer Days, which bring hundreds of students from underrepresented and underprivileged backgrounds into direct contact with the aviation world. Visits to Cathay City, cargo terminals, catering centres, and training academies are interspersed with hands-on activities and mentorship sessions. The airline has worked closely with community partners and government initiatives focused on upward mobility, ensuring that young people who might never have considered a travel-related career get to see what is possible.
As the year progresses, participants transition into more focused elements such as the I Can Fly Youth Academy, where a smaller group commits to intensive aviation learning and project work. By layering broad exposure with deeper engagement, the programme is consciously designed to function as both an inspiration engine and a talent pipeline.
Beyond Planes: Social Service, Sustainability and Leadership
Despite its aviation focus, I Can Fly has always been framed as more than a recruitment tool for airlines. From the outset, Cathay embedded community service into the curriculum, requiring students to conceptualise and deliver their own social impact projects. Recent cohorts have tackled themes such as youth development, waste reduction, and carbon neutrality, often designing campaigns or initiatives that link aviation with broader environmental or social issues.
Workshops on design thinking and social innovation encourage participants to see themselves not just as future employees, but as potential changemakers. By asking how airports can reduce single-use plastics, how in-flight catering can minimise food waste, or how airlines can better serve ethnic minority communities, students are nudged to think systemically about the travel ecosystem.
This focus on social responsibility is particularly relevant for markets like China, Singapore, Indonesia, and Vietnam, where rapid growth in air travel has raised questions about sustainability, inclusivity, and equitable access to global mobility. By equipping young people with both industry insight and a values-based framework, I Can Fly positions them to shape a more responsible era of tourism and aviation.
From Curious Teens to Aviation Professionals
One of the most compelling measures of I Can Fly’s impact is the number of graduates who have gone on to build careers in aviation. Over two decades, participants have entered the industry as pilots, engineers, operations managers, and customer service leaders, often citing their early exposure through the programme as a turning point in their lives.
For students in China and Southeast Asia, the pathway from I Can Fly to professional training is becoming clearer. Some may progress to Cathay’s cadet pilot programme, an intensive 80 week course that combines ground school in Hong Kong with flying training in the United States or Australia. Others may pursue university degrees in aeronautical engineering, logistics, or tourism management, supported by the networks and confidence they first gained as teenagers walking through hangars and control rooms.
In this sense, the initiative operates as a long-horizon investment not only for Cathay, but for the wider aviation ecosystem. As air transport continues to expand in Asia Pacific, airlines, airports, and regulators will need a steady stream of skilled, globally minded professionals. I Can Fly, with its regional reach and emphasis on both technical literacy and civic engagement, is one of the few industry-led programmes already working at that scale.
Why Travel Education and Youth Empowerment Matter Now
The timing of these expansions is no coincidence. After years of disruption, global travel has returned with new urgency and new questions. Young people from China, Singapore, Australia, Indonesia, and Vietnam are travelling in greater numbers, often with a strong interest in sustainability, digital innovation, and cross-cultural understanding. At the same time, aviation faces a complex mix of labour shortages, decarbonisation pressures, and shifting passenger expectations.
In this context, initiatives like I Can Fly are more than feel-good outreach projects. They are strategic responses to a future in which mobility, climate responsibility, and social cohesion will need to be reconciled. By introducing teenagers to the realities of aviation operations, the constraints of fuel and infrastructure, and the human dimensions of customer service and community impact, Cathay is fostering a generation of travellers and professionals who can navigate these tensions with nuance.
For destination marketers and tourism boards across the region, the programme also points to a broader opportunity. Travel education can build more respectful and engaged visitors, who understand not only how to navigate airports, but how their journeys intersect with local cultures and environments. As China, Singapore, Australia, Indonesia, and Vietnam continue to deepen their air links and tourism partnerships, having a cohort of young people who see travel as a privilege and a responsibility could prove invaluable.
A Regional Blueprint for the Future of Aviation Talent
With China now firmly in the vanguard alongside Singapore, Australia, Indonesia, and Vietnam, Cathay Pacific’s I Can Fly initiative is evolving into a regional blueprint for aviation-focused youth development. Cross-border training academies, philanthropic funds, explorer days, and social innovation projects are converging into a coherent ecosystem that connects classrooms to cockpits and community halls to control towers.
The next few years will be critical in determining how far this model can scale. If the Aviation Dream Youth Development Fund in Beijing succeeds in fostering sustained exchange between mainland and Hong Kong students, it could inspire similar partnerships elsewhere in Asia. If the Youth Academy format proves effective, it could be replicated in markets like Singapore or Indonesia, linked to local universities and training centres. If alumni continue to move into leadership roles within airlines, airports, and tourism agencies, the ripple effects could reshape how the region thinks about travel careers.
For now, what is clear is that Cathay’s approach resonates with a new generation of young people eager to explore the world while contributing meaningfully to it. In connecting China with its neighbours through shared learning and shared skies, I Can Fly is doing more than helping students chase their aviation dreams. It is helping to write a new chapter in how travel, education, and youth empowerment intersect across the Asia Pacific region.