Crew shortage forces airline to cancel services
Dragonair is being forced to cancel up to eight flights a day as senior captains and first officers leave the airline at a rate of more than one a week.
Six captains resigned in the space of a week this month, and 34 first officers and captains have handed in their notice in the past six months, pilots say. They blame a long-running dispute over rosters and pay.
On October 13 eight flights were cancelled - including five between Hong Kong and Shanghai and two between Hong Kong and Taipei - with crew shortages cited as the reason in all cases and cockpit crew shortages cited in two cases.
A year after its HK$12 billion takeover by Cathay Pacific, cancellations on Hong Kong's second-biggest airline are running at a rate of two a day.
Pilots say managers have repeatedly refused to implement a rostering agreement to ease the strain on pilots handling a growing volume of back-to-back flights and overnight stops. However, Dragonair, which has around 400, mostly expatriate, pilots, says it is feeling the impact of a worldwide shortage of cockpit crew.