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A businessman said yesterday he might give up flying with Cathay Pacific after his problems on board flight CX883 from Los Angeles to Hong Kong, which arrived five hours late following unscheduled detours to Canada and Japan.

Edward Pinshow, 53, who lives in Israel, is a frequent passenger with the oneworld Alliance, which includes Cathay.

But he is considering switching to Star Alliance, saying it was Cathay Pacific rather than the pilots he was angry with.

Part of his anger stems from the lack of communication from the airline's management.

'Obviously Cathay couldn't give a damn,' he said. 'I lost most of the day today. I certainly wasn't functioning.'

Mr Pinshow said he and other passengers he spoke to sympathised with the pilots, even though 'we also felt we were victims in this particular dispute'.

Their problems started in Los Angeles, when the plane took off about 90 minutes late.

A staff member on the flight told Mr Pinshow the delay was caused by a pilot who had only had 11 hours' rest after a previous flight and was too exhausted to fly.

'I have no reason to disbelieve this story . . . Frankly, our own crew seemed exhausted,' Mr Pinshow said.

Instead of flying direct to Hong Kong, the flight diverted to Vancouver to pick up a replacement pilot.

Mr Pinshow was left wondering why Cathay did not have a fill-in pilot available in LA.

'It's clearly a shortage of crew . . . I feel the company has let us down,' he said.

The plane and passengers spent about two hours on the tarmac in Vancouver, he said.

Staff members told him they were waiting for flight plans.

And when they eventually took off, it was for Osaka rather than Hong Kong because the pilots had apparently used up their flying time and needed to be replaced. The change-over took about an hour, according to Mr Pinshow, but he admitted his sense of time was getting hazy.

They finally arrived in Hong Kong at about 1.50am yesterday morning - five hours late.

A spokeswoman for Cathay said she regretted any inconvenience to passengers. There was no evidence to suggest the delay was related to the industrial action, she said, although the airline was still investigating.

She did not think Mr Pinshow would get extra frequent flyer points because of the detours.

CX05GET



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Flight five hours late after detours to Japan and Canada