Editorial | Better management at Cathay vital to status of Hong Kong as aviation hub

As Hong Kong brands go they do not come any bigger than Cathay Pacific Airways. With air travel decimated by Covid-19 it seemed the airline’s darkest days had dawned before its 75th anniversary last year, leading to a massive government-led financial bailout.

Now it is facing calls to be held to blame if the city is gripped by a fifth wave of the pandemic. That might take some heat off senior officials and lawmakers, many now quarantining or isolating, who attended a now infamous birthday party for an official last week despite government health warnings against joining large gatherings.

Chief Executive Carrie Lam Cheng Yuet-ngor on Tuesday said the government would take action should the airline be found to have violated anti-infection rules by exploiting loopholes so pilots could return on cargo flights to avoid quarantine. Professor Gabriel Leung, dean of the faculty of medicine at the University of Hong Kong, said, rightly, that Cathay must be aware of the loopholes and should plug them to fulfil its social responsibility.

This is a serious matter. It arises on the heels of isolation breaches by aircrew blamed for the first local coronavirus infections in more than 80 days.

In that case the South China Morning Post added its voice to criticism of Cathay for failing to impose discipline on its staff. But ultimately this is not about fault-finding or playing a blame game.