Cathay Pacific was founded in 1946 by Roy Farrell and Sydney de Kantzow – respectively an American and an Australian - who saw an opportunity to start passenger and cargo flights out of Shanghai. They moved their enterprise to Hong Kong in the same year and paid HK$1 apiece to register the airline. They named it Cathay Pacific Airways, because Cathay was the ancient name for China and far-sighted Roy Farrell speculated that one day the airline would fly across the Pacific Ocean.