Cathay Pacific scales back 2016 expansion plans, blames cockpit crew dispute
Casualties include new international routes and a planned increase in flight frequency, airline says
Cathay Pacific Airways has drastically scaled back its expansion plans this year, including postponing new international routes and delaying a planned increase in flight frequency, and pinned the blame on its cockpit crew’s year-long work-to-rule action.
Among the stymied plans were the introduction of daily flights to Manchester and Boston, which were postponed to next year, and the launch of flights to London’s Gatwick airport, pushed back to September, the Post learned.
In a letter to the company’s pilots sent in December last year, general manager of aircrew Dominic Perret called the labour stalemate a “lose-lose” situation and “frustrating for all of us”.
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“Our growth plans for 2016 have recently been scaled back considerably, and there are a few reasons why we have made the difficult decision to do this,” he stated in the letter seen by the Post. “There are certainly operational reasons – we have built more slack into the system to help improve our poor on-time performance and to make the roster more stable.”
“Other reasons for our slower growth are clearly industrial – namely the campaign led by the HKAOA here in Hong Kong of contract compliance and the training captain ban.”
The Hong Kong Aircrew Officers Association, representing 2,100 of Cathay Pacific’s 2,900 pilots, launched a work-to-rule action in December 2014 over a pay rise dispute. Although the issue was resolved, pilots vowed to continue the action because of other disputes, such as roster patterns.
The association also called on training captains to suspend training other pilots, thus affecting the airline’s manpower plans.