2 Carriers Selling Tickets for Same Flight : Transportation: The flight is operated by Cathay Pacific, but American Airlines has bought 38% of the seats. The deal benefits both.

By ROBERT E. DALLOS

May 29, 1990 12 AM PT

TIMES STAFF WRITER

NEW YORK —

Two airlines are running newspaper ads claiming that each will have the only nonstop flights between Hong Kong and Los Angeles. Which is telling the truth? In a sense, both.

Any confusion is the result of a deal between American Airlines and Hong Kong-based Cathay Pacific Airways. The planes flying the route, which will be inaugurated July 1, will be those of Cathay Pacific. But Cathay Pacific has sold 38% of the seats to American.

American is selling the seats as if they were on its own planes. Both airlines say every effort is made to tell passengers that they will actually be flying Cathay Pacific. The American ads also say so, in relatively small type.

Such block seat-sale arrangements, as they are called, can be good business for both carriers.

“Cathay Pacific is a profit-oriented airline,” a spokeswoman said. “This partnership helps assure that the route will be more financially secure and successful.”

American, which has no routes to Hong Kong, gets a presence there nevertheless. It also gets a chance to attract Cathay Pacific passengers to its U.S. routes. “It gives us a marketing opportunity,” a spokesman for Dallas-based American said.

American, he added, hopes one day to fly between Hong Kong and Los Angeles. But getting foreign routes requires bilateral negotiations between the countries involved, as well as approval by the U.S. government.

“We certainly would like to expand into the Pacific Rim as much as possible,” the spokesman said. But the airline is putting its major emphasis on acquiring additional routes to Japan. American’s only Japan route is between Dallas and Tokyo.

Agreements such as the one between American and Cathay Pacific are not unusual. Airlines have purchased blocks of seats on other airlines before. It is often done--as Cathay Pacific is doing--when an airline is trying to develop a new market.

Cathay Pacific started in 1946 with $30,000 in capital and one route--between Shanghai and Sydney, Australia--using a refurbished military transport plane. It is now considered a highly efficient airline. It flies throughout Asia and to major cities in Europe and North America.