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Cathay Pacific
OpinionLetters

Letters | The real driver of high Cathay Pacific fares? It’s not rising staff costs

  • Readers discuss staffing issues at Hong Kong’s flag carrier, and how the commercial sector can help pave the way for legal recognition of same-sex partnerships

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Cathay Pacific airplanes parked at Hong Kong airport on September 23. Photo: Sam Tsang
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The letter, “Cheaper Cathay Pacific fares? Don’t hold your breath” (September 10), correctly highlights “reignited travel demand”. Unfortunately, your correspondent skirts around the supply side causes of high ticket prices, specifically, the lack of flights.

This August, Cathay flew only 55 per cent of the flights that it did in August 2019. This is the real driver of high ticket prices.

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The reason that so many aircraft are grounded is that there are insufficient pilots and cabin crew to operate them. And the reason for the lack of crew is that Cathay management slashed salaries and allowances permanently for most of its frontline crew, causing many of them to leave the airline and not return.

Cathay is presumably hiring non-locals to fill vacancies, but is that really in keeping with Hong Kong’s General Employment Policy? Meanwhile, the airline is still years away from replacing the nearly 2,000 Hong Kong pilots who left Cathay, including 550 made redundant from Cathay Dragon.

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Furthermore, the departures of frontline crew have not stopped. In a recent survey of our membership, 18 per cent indicated that they have resigned from Cathay Pacific or will do so within the next 12 months.

It is quite wrong to suggest that elevated ticket prices have been caused by “rising labour costs”. In fact, the pay of most frontline crew has been significantly reduced.

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