Cathay Pacific recruits staff, plans jet orders as Hong Kong Airport expands

CATHAY Pacific Airways is in talks with Boeing and Airbus about expanding its fleet, seeking to bounce back from the Covid pandemic as the opening of Hong Kong airport’s third runway swells capacity.

The airline is exploring possibilities for adding both passenger aircraft and freighters, chief customer and commercial officer Ronald Lam said in an interview in London on Thursday (Oct 6). Cathay would be seeking deliveries from 2025, when the new landing strip comes into full service. 

While the company is keeping its options open, Lam said it would like to have consistency and synergy with its existing fleet, comprising A321neo jets for short-haul flights and A330s, A350s and B777s used on longer routes and some regional services. Low-cost unit Hong Kong Express Airways has an all-A320 family line-up.

After two-and-a-half bruising years during which the coronavirus crisis severely restricted operations, Cathay Pacific has grounds for optimism now that Hong Kong has finally dropped mandatory quarantine rules. While some virus restrictions remain, the carrier is positioning for a resurgence in travel.

“We have had some short-term setbacks because of the pandemic, but I think we will come back strong,” Lam said. “In particular, we play a very key role connecting between Hong Kong and Europe – and that role will not change, and will only get stronger.”

Cathay is currently operating about 16 per cent of pre-pandemic seating, set to rise to about one-third by the end of the year, Lam said. It plans to return to normal levels by the end of 2024 or early 2025, though HK Express will recover earlier. Freight capacity should reach two-thirds of 2019 tonnage this year.

Lam said Cathay is in active discussions on renewing its cargo fleet and is looking at both Boeing’s 777-8F and Airbus’ 350 freighter, confirming a Bloomberg report. New planes would be in addition to its 20 747 freighters, most of them the final iteration of the jumbo.

On the much-delayed 777X, which Cathay ordered in 2013, Lam said the airline has agreed a delivery plan with Boeing from 2025 and currently has no plans to reduce the size of its order.

For much of the pandemic, the carrier was operating just 2 per cent of 2019 passenger capacity as Hong Kong virtually outlawed international travel. It underwent a HK$39 billion (S$7.1 billion) government-led recapitalisation in 2020, shuttered regional arm Cathay Dragon and cut thousands of jobs.

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The group now plans to hire 8,000 staff across functions including pilots, cabin crew, check-in and ground handling, said the executive. That includes 4,000 at the main airline, a number that will still leave staffing only at 2009 levels.

Replenishing the airline’s ranks of flight attendants and pilots is a delicate matter for Cathay – an airline which, with no domestic market to rely upon, suffered tremendously during Covid. Employee numbers plunged about 40 per cent to 16,200 as at June from the end of 2019 due to Covid-related redundancies, retirements and resignations, many of which were spurred by the city’s harsh approach to handling the pandemic.

In that, Cathay also lost almost 30 per cent of its pilots, prompting its pilots’ union, the Hong Kong Aircrew Officers’ Association, to earlier this week warn of unprecedented staffing and training shortages.

Cathay said at its in-person recruiting drive on Friday – attendance at which was muted in line with the city’s Covid restrictions – that it had enough cabin crew members for current operations.

Lam said that the airline is at least two years away from a full recovery. He predicts Cathay’s pre-Covid passenger capacity should reach 100 per cent by the end of 2024 or early 2025. BLOOMBERG