Cathay as "Cathay" (in a number of spelling variants) as well. The name occurs in the writings of Giovanni da Pian del Carpine (c. 1180–1252) (as "Kitaia"), William of Rubruck (c. 1220–c. 1293) (as "Cataya" or "Cathaia"). Rashid-al-Din Hamadani, ibn Battuta, Marco Polo all were referring to Northern China as Cathay, while Southern China, ruled by the Song dynasty, was "Mangi", "Manzi", "Chin", or "Sin". The word "Manzi" (蠻子) or "Mangi" is a derogatory term in Chinese meaning "barbarians of the south" ("Man" was used to describe unsinicised Southern China in its earlier periods), and would therefore not have been used
Cathay Dragon National Aviation Corporation Group, CITIC Pacific and Swire Pacific. Cathay Pacific claimed that Dragonair will continue to operate as a separate airline within the Cathay Pacific group, maintaining its own Air Operator's Certificate and with the brand unchanged, with 2,976 employees worldwide. However, the airline will be downsized with five percent of the airline staff retrenched or transferred into Cathay Pacific. No Cathay Pacific staff were to be affected by this announcement. By 2009, services to Bangkok and Tokyo; and the expansion plans to introduce services to Sydney, Seoul and the United States have been cancelled and terminated. In addition,