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Cathay also freezes recruitment as impact of 'financial tsunami' grows
An airline workers' union has warned that more layoffs are on the way after it received requests for help from eight flight attendants sacked by  two local carriers.
The number of passengers and amount of cargo handled at Hong Kong International Airport  stood at 3.6 million and 317,000 tonnes in September, down 4.7 per cent and 7.5 per cent respectively from the same month last year.
Airport Authority chief executive Stanley Hui Hon-chung  said the steep decline in both passengers and air cargo  reflected  the troubled global economy.
'The US, Europe and the biggest trading partners with Hong Kong and China saw a significant drop in air-cargo traffic to and from Hong Kong in the month,' he said.
The comment came as the Staff and Workers Union of Hong Kong Civil Airlines  yesterday confirmed that eight flight attendants from Hong Kong Airlines and Hong Kong Express Airways had sought the union's help.
'The company sacked the eight on Saturday,' union general secretary Chan Po-choi  said.
'They asked the company why they had been terminated, but no reply was given.
'This is only the beginning, and we believe more layoffs will come. When the economy worsens, all companies want to cut operation costs.
'We know that many business-class ticket bookings have been cancelled recently. It seems the industry is now getting a taste of the power of the financial tsunami.'
Hong Kong Express general manager Pauline Kee Ching-wan   declined to comment yesterday.
Mr Chan said some affected flight attendants were former Oasis  employees - which meant they had been sacked twice in less than six months.
'Oasis only closed down in April,' he said.
'We hosted recruitment events for their staff and Hong Kong Airlines and Hong Kong Express Airways took part in the event and hired some workers.'
The starting pay for flight attendants hired by the two companies is HK$7,800 a month and they get a HK$320 allowance per return flight. Mr Chan said some staff told the union that they had to undergo a six-month probation  and were only given seven days' notice of termination.
'The employment terms offered by these  companies seems to be the worst among all airline companies in Hong Kong,' he said.
Established in 2001 and 2004 respectively, sister airlines Hong Kong Airlines and Hong Kong Express Airways  fly new Boeing 737-800  aircraft between Hong Kong and more than 30 cities in Asia.
The union demanded that the companies accept their social responsibilities and not shift operational difficulties on to employees.
'The companies should adopt other measures such as restructuring  operations to cut costs instead of sacking workers,' Mr Chan said.
Cathay Pacific chief executive Tony Tyler told staff via the company's intranet on Saturday that the global financial crisis was having an increasingly serious impact.
He said traffic figures  showed a decline in  passenger numbers and cargo  for September, and the first half of October did not look good.
'There is now an urgent need for us to deal with the consequences ...  of what Chief Executive Donald Tsang Yam-kuen  this week described as a financial tsunami,' he said.
'We will begin by suspending all recruitment at both Cathay Pacific and Dragonair.
'This suspension applies to recruitment for all vacancies.
'It is certainly going to be a difficult time for the airline, but there is no change to our intention to keep the team together.'
Beginning descent
Passenger numbers on the two airlines have fallen by: 180,000
The amount of air freight is down by this many tonnes: 26,000



Two city airlines cut jobs in crisis