Cathay Group CEO Ronald Lam Siu-por sought to reassure customers, with the company saying it had reviewed flight schedules and increased pilot standby levels.

“We have taken measures to ensure Cathay Pacific’s flights will operate normally for the coming Chinese New Year travel peak,” Lam said. “Hong Kong people travelling out and visitors coming to Hong Kong can be reassured that their travel will go ahead as planned.”

A Transport and Logistics Bureau spokesman told the Post it had grave concerns over Cathay’s decision to combine some flights and ordered the company to promptly inform affected passengers of changes to flight arrangements.

“As the Hong Kong aviation industry moves towards a full recovery, coupled with the coming Lunar New Year travel season next month, local airlines need to increase capacity to meet the demand,” he said. “At the same time, they have a responsibility to handle flight scheduling and manpower arrangements effectively to ensure reliable service.

The bureau had asked airlines to put contingency plans in place and be flexible in allocating resources to cope with any potential emergencies, he added.

Cathay called off almost 70 flights during the Christmas and New Year holidays citing “higher-than-expected pilot absences caused by seasonal illness”.

Travel writer James Hong Ming-sang said his flight from Taipei to Osaka was cancelled on Sunday morning due to a “flight rescheduling”, adding he was sceptical of the airline’s promises.

Hong said Cathay notified him of the cancellation of the 11.15am flight soon after he arrived at the airport in Taipei at 8.30am, he said.

He said he was asked to board another flight on Monday or fly to Osaka from Seoul on Sunday, a route that would have increased his travel time from six hours and 15 minutes to about 12 hours.

He instead decided to spend NT$9,000 (HK$2,270) on another flight ticket, which was about 30 to 40 per cent more costly than his original one, he said.

Hong Kong’s Cathay Pacific cancels another 28 flights, blaming pilot illness

Eva Kan, an administrative worker in her 40s, said she was planning to go on a one-week ski trip to Japan with her husband and friend over the Lunar New Year holiday and was now worried about her flight being cancelled.

“Even though Cathay guarantees it will maintain normal operation over that period, it’s not easy for the company to boost the manpower in just a few weeks’ time,” she said. “We already paid HK$15,000 [US$1,920] per head for the trip … the cost will be huge if our flight is disrupted.”

She added that she would buy travel insurance to cover the extra cost in case their flight was affected.

Law Cheung-kwok, senior adviser at the Aviation Research and Policy Centre at the Chinese University of Hong Kong, said Cathay’s arrangement was the “best short-term solution” the airline could adopt to ease the manpower strain during peak season as it was impossible to quickly buy more aircraft and hire additional crew members.

“But the measure will undeniably bring some inconvenience to passengers, especially those with an inflexible travel plan,” he said.

Andrew Yuen Chi-lok, a senior lecturer at the centre, said routes with multiple daily flights, including Bangkok, Taipei, Beijing and Shanghai should be given a higher priority for merging “so passengers only need to wait an hour or two” for the flight.

“In the mid-term period, the airline will need to explore other solutions, including deploying larger capacity aircraft, and in the long run, boost the manpower supply of aircrew members,” he said.

Hong Kong’s Cathay vows to avoid repeat of cancellations, as pilots hit hour limit

Asked whether the company had set an unrealistic target to resume its flight capacity, Yuen said Hong Kong was already lagging behind neighbouring cities in returning to pre-pandemic levels, noting Cathay faced some uncontrollable factors, including employee seasonal illnesses.

A Cathay pilot who spoke on condition of anonymity said the cancellations were caused by flight crew shortage. He said the company had searched for a pilot rostered off to fly to Singapore on Sunday morning but was unsuccessful and hundreds of passengers were moved to another flight that departed almost four hours later.

“This is going on all the time now … on the Singapore route it has been common as of late, [and on] other destinations too,” he said.

According to the Hong Kong Aircrew Officers Association, Cathay had 2,532 pilots as of last month, compared with 3,885 in the fourth quarter of 2019, a nearly 35 per cent decrease.

Association chairman Paul Weatherilt said the company had set itself “unrealistic targets” to resume flight capacity.

“There’s no real ability for the system to absorb these changes, they knock on and end up cancelling more than just one flight,” he said.

The company earlier said it aimed to return to pre-pandemic passenger flight capacity by the end of 2024.

How did woman reportedly get on Hong Kong-bound Cathay plane without boarding pass?

Cathay’s operations were stretched over the Christmas and New Year holidays when it added 8 per cent more daily flights, according to an internal memo seen earlier by the Post.

Many pilots had worked hard throughout the year and were reaching their limit of 900 flying hours per year, the memo said.

Some pilots earlier told the Post that flight cancellations might persist due to the shortage of experienced cockpit crew, expressing concerns about possible safety issues triggered by fatigue.

But the airline on Sunday said it had learned from recent experiences and, in addition to the short-term measures implemented, would make the necessary changes to ensure future operational stability. It also reiterated its commitment to providing customers with more flight choices.

Additional reporting by Oscar Liu