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A Hong Kong Airlines passenger plane prepared to take off at the Hong Kong International Airport. Photo: May Tse

Hong Kong Airlines keeps young team happy with moon cakes, hiking trips and wine tasting

Hong Kong carrier allows staff to plan weekly activities in a bid to keep its young workforce happy and attract more talent to the company

As Hong Kong Airlines embarked on its ambitious plan to almost double its fleet size by the end of 2018, it has found itself in a race against other airlines for manpower.

And the race is not just about grabbing suitable candidates ­before the competitors do, but ­retaining them as well, which can be especially difficult when most of the staff are young.

The solution? Organise weekly staff engagement activities.

“The average age of our cabin crew and ground staff is just 27 years old,” the airline’s director of service delivery Stanley Kan said. “There is definitely a generation gap. The question is how big is the gap? Everyone is young and so as a member of the management, we need to come up with ways to ­engage and spend time with the young people.”

A decade after the airline was established in 2006, it now has a fleet of 30 planes. Two and a half years from now, the airline will have more than 50 planes.

This year, the airline’s total number of staff will be increased from 3,000 to 4,000 as it extends its global reach, adding new destinations including the Kuching city of Malaysia in May, Tokyo in July, and Auckland in November.

Last year, the airline organised about 60 staff engagement activities from making moon cakes, hiking, to wine tastings.

“I don’t decide what activities to organise. I let the staff do it. I give them a budget and so they can organise anything they like. It is important that we don’t make them do what we want them to do,” Kan said.

Exploring the talents of the staff beyond what they do at work helps makes them feel like a part of a family, he said.

One of the cabin crew members, who runs the popular Flying Maid page on Facebook, understands this very well.

The flight attendant, who did not want to be named, joined the airline a year ago and has been sharing his drawings with the theme of his travelling times on his Facebook page since then. His page has drawn 15,000 likes already, becoming a place where youngsters who fancy becoming a flight attendant get their inside views of the industry.

The airline management ­noticed that his drawings have ­become a big hit in the internet world, and has subsequently ­invited him to design the company’s marketing materials, ­including the 2016 company ­calendars, red packet envelops, and Christmas cards.

“I found it hard to believe at first. I was very surprised. And then I asked myself, am I good enough to do so? Designing a calendar for an airline is like deciding the airline’s image,” the 25 year old said.

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