Discovery is the in-flight magazine available free to all passengers on Cathay Pacific flights. It is published monthly and can be found in the seat-back pockets of every seat on Cathay Pacific aircraft. Passengers can take the magazine with them when they disembark their flights.

Each issue of the magazine has travel articles in Chinese, English and sometimes Japanese, introducing sites of interest, cultures and traditions of different places. A guide introducing the monthly movies, video and audio programs available on different channels of the in-flight entertainment system can also be found in the magazine.

Also, there are pages about Cathay Pacific's development, fleet information, route map and information about all of its destinations, e.g. airport tax, methods of going into the city, etc.

Discovery might, just, have been the first regularly published inflight magazine in the world. UTA had produced a one off magazine in 1972 and Pan American had a thin publicity handout on some earlier flights. But the idea of an inflight magazine on every flight for every passenger started with Cathay Pacific.
In 1973 Cathay Pacific was set to fly from Hong Kong to Sydney. At the time this was a long flight and, indeed, the first seriously long flight by Cathay.
The marketing manager, Keith Sillett, wanted something to entertain the passengers inflight. The idea of portable music machines -- not the Sony Walkman but the same concept -- was considered and ejected on the grounds that passengers would not be able to hear pilot's announcements and this might be a safety problem.
I put up the idea of a box of games which would pass the time in flight. It would contain crossword puzzles, origami, what have you. The box was A4 horizontal. In the box would be a slim guide to some Cathay destinations.
The idea was turned down, again on safety grounds, because it was possible passengers would make paper aircraft and fly them at each other.
So then the idea was to expand the thin magazine and make it multi-lingual. Rebecca Lee was the designer and I was the editor. We called the magazine 'Discovery' because that was the name used by Cathay Pacific for its packaged holidays.
It was almost an instant success.
The reason was that smoking was then allowed on board. Cigarette companies would kill to get their products on a flight. There was a weight restriction about how many brands. If they bought advertising in the magazine, the thought went, the products would have to be on board. British American Tobacco as it could get. Other early advertisers were American Express and some of the perfume companies.
The first eight issues were once every two months but then it became monthly. It spawned a lot of extra magazines and publications including one for frequent flyers -- Marco Polo, and several guides to Asia.
It used to be explained to advertisers that scientific research had showed that horizontal A4 was the best shape for inflight reading. This, of course, was nonsense. It was the shape of the original box of toys.