Hong Kong’s Cathay Pacific apologises over flight cancellations after city’s leader urges carrier to rebuild capacity
Hong Kong Free Press
Hong Kong’s Cathay Pacific has apologised over a string of flight cuts and said it had set up a taskforce to investigate, after the city’s leader urged the flagship carrier to rebuild its flight capacity quickly.
In a statement on Wednesday, the airline said it had completed its planned flight consolidations. Earlier, Cathay Pacific announced that it would cancel a dozen flights a day until the end of February to ensure normal operation during the Chinese New Year peak travel period between February 7 and 18.
The decision came after the airline made last-minute flights cancellations on the last three days of December and New Year’s Day, cutting over 40 flights in the four-day period. The company cited staff falling ill as the cause of the cancellations, but a pilot’s union said a shortage of senior pilots was “at the root” of the matter.
Alex McGowan, the chief operations and service delivery officer, on Wednesday apologised to passengers affected by the disruptions, saying the airline had “underestimated the number of reserve pilots” needed over the Christmas and New Year period.
“Given our January pilot rosters were already set in mid-December, the lack of adequate reserve levels persisted into January,” McGowan said in the statement. “In order to stabilise the current operation, we needed to cancel further flights across the first two weeks of January.”
He said that cancellations peaked on January 7 with 27 flights axed, and that there would be fewer over subsequent weeks. According to real-time flight information on the Hong Kong International Airport website, Cathay Pacific cancelled 21 flights on Tuesday.
McGowan added that over 96 per cent of the passengers affected by flight consolidations had been given alternative flight options within 24 hours of their original departure time.
The senior officer also said that he would lead a taskforce to probe the matter.
“The disruption of this scale is far below the standard our customers have a right to expect, and far below the standard to which we hold ourselves,” he said.
Authorities ‘very concerned’
Chief Executive John Lee said on Tuesday that authorities were “very concerned” over Cathay Pacific’s last-minute flight cuts, urging the carrier to rebuild its flight capacity to maintain the city’s competitiveness as an aviation hub.
“I want our aviation industry to rebuild its capacity fast and completely so that we will be competitive as a whole,” Lee said, adding that Cathay Pacific should review its manpower and overall flight capacity in the long run.
Lam Sai-hung, the city’s transport and logistics chief, on Monday also expressed “great concern” to Cathay’s senior management over the recent flight cuts.
Pilot shortage
In a statement on Tuesday, the Hong Kong Aircrew Officers Association – a union of Cathay Pacific pilots – called for an inquiry into the situation, saying it had been warning of potential problems linked to a shortfall in staff for months.
The union said that the current shortage of senior pilots was a result of Cathay Pacific’s decisions in 2020, when Covid-19 hit. At the time, the airline made “deep and permanent reductions to the pay of frontline staff, fired pilots and flight attendants and closed their mainland oriented regional carrier, Cathay Dragon,” the union said.
Hong Kong’s prolonged pandemic measures dealt a heavy blow to Cathay Pacific, which slashed its workforce as it grounded a significant portion of its passenger fleet.
The airline also introduced new contracts during Covid-19 that saw many pilots accept pay cuts, as well as reduced pension contributions and housing allowance. In response, Cathay Pacific has seen a pilot exodus that unionists say has slowed the airline’s recovery.
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