Cathay Pacific “needs to boost staff morale”

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  • AndrewinHK
    Participant

    Cwoodward I certainly wasn’t bragging, if you thought that, I think that says more about you than I. I was giving some perspective to your biased comments, and referencing from my experience. There is no need to deride others which you frequently do, someone so successful should be humble, not trying to always score points with incorrect assertions and nasty rhetoric. Let’s revert to facts not vague references to online articles, the number of HK residents paying salaries tax dropped by 4 per cent, from 1.9 million to 1.8 million, the lowest since 2017-18, this is partly due to expatriation of residents, and reflects that only 25% of the Hong Kong population earn enough to actually pay salary tax, and 4% of those that do (and the assumption that these people pay because they earn more) would again highlight the problem that educated, skilled people are leaving and or are unemployed.

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    stevescoots
    Participant

    I guess it all boils down to how one defines professional, and often that comes down to ones background and a dose of snobbery.

    At least trying to get back to travel. Are aircrew professional? Pilots, sure, but what about the senior cabin staff? would a crew member who did a BA or similar but then decided to see the world as low paid crew be more professional than a CSD in her/his 50s who left school with nothing and worked their way up the ranks?

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    AndrewinHK
    Participant

    Steve an interesting point, it is a challenging thing to judge, the fact that many moving are families, so kids and spouses may not always be employed, which I assume means they are deemed unprofessional/unskilled likely skews any data.


    Woodpecker
    Participant

    Any company especially an airline, would have staff morale as a priority. So it would be a reasonable assumption that CX management are aware of the issue & making attempts to ensure this. Whether they are competent in the execution of the same is subject to opinion.

    From personal experience, each time I have flown CX both the checkin staff as well as flight crew have been top notch. So if indeed there is any disgruntlement, they have been utterly professional to set this aside while performing their duties.

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    stevescoots
    Participant

    [postquote quote=1364810]

    Agree, Morale is absolutley everything……just ask Uncle Vlad what low morale can do!


    cwoodward
    Participant

    AHK It was pointed out to me last evening that of those departing to the UK 42% had earned less than HK$350K pa in Hong Kong and a further 22% earned under $420,000 p.a. .

    Hardly the salaries of professionals and similar to the salary of a 5 year experienced bus driver who would earn on average about HK$332K p.a. according to government stats.
    In contrast 3 year qualified solicitor (a professional in your context) would earn on average about $820,000 p.a. here.
    (Bus drivers are of course professionals but not I suggest in the context mentioned).

    Hardly the stampede of professionals leaving Hong Kong that is being banded about by yourself and the UK media

    Rather much has been made of the numbers permanently leaving Hong Kong and to add perhaps some context 557,000 UK perm res left the UK permanently in the year to December 2022.
    I read yesterday that over a hundred doctors are leaving the U.K heading for Hong Kong having been granted licences to practise here and it seems that several hundred more will head this way in the near future.
    Perhaps Hong Kong’s inflation rate over the past 10 years of under 2% p.a. is something of the attraction (2.1% currently)

    This debate between us now has nothing what ever to do with Business Travel and I will not comment further unless re BT – happy for you to have the last word though should that be your wish.


    Chris in Makati
    Participant

    I see Cathay Pacific only made the number nine spot in the latest Airline Ratings survey. I find that quite surprising.

    AirlineRatings.com’s top 25 airlines for 2022

    1. Air New Zealand
    2. Qatar Airways
    3. Etihad Airways
    4. Korean Air
    5. Singapore Airlines
    6. Qantas
    7. Virgin Australia/Virgin Atlantic
    8. EVA Air
    9. Cathay Pacific Airways
    10. Emirates
    11. Lufthansa / Swiss
    12. SAS
    13. TAP Portugal
    14. All Nippon Airways
    15. Delta Air Lines
    16. Air Canada
    17. British Airways
    18. Jet Blue
    19. JAL
    20. Vietnam Airlines
    21. Turkish Airlines
    22. Hawaiian
    23. KLM
    24. Alaska Airlines
    25. United Airlines


    AndrewinHK
    Participant

    Hi cwoodward, I do enjoy the back and forth. Assuming the stats you referenced are correct, it still intimates that 36% of people who departed earned more than 420,000 HKD, and the figures will likely be skewed lower as many who left will be spouses who aren’t employed or children.

    My disagreements with you are predominantly to do with the fact that you are super defensive of anything HK related, and quite derisory about any other place/airline etc. In some respects I get it, I love Hong Kong, and I also love London, my home town, but I am not blind to either of their faults. It is all well and good having strong opinions, your viewpoints are certainly quite entrenched, but I think you need to acknowledge that sweeping sometimes aggressive statements maybe aren’t always the best way to summarise issues.

    Back to CX and morale, I assume a nice SQ style bonus if results improve, will sort them all out.


    cwoodward
    Participant

    It is not very surprising when one considers that the airline was effectively closed for almost 3 years and still operating at around 50% capacity. It is a far better result than I would have expected.

    1 user thanked author for this post.

    KSHaggag
    Participant

    It breaks my heart to read about such issues within my beloved CATHAY PACIFIC ;I do recall having had the most pleasant and superb inflight experiences over the last 15 years or so on CX mainly in Business Class ,thanks to its awesome ,good mannered ,courteous ,hospitable ,yet highly professional cabin crew members on short ,medium and long haul flights to various parts of the world !
    In my opinion ,the quality of Cabin Crew was one of the main assets of this airline that made me come back time after time although I am not highly loyal to Oneworld ,generally .
    I still recall with joy the multicultural ,multilingual Asian Cabin Crew members creating the richness and diversity of this admirable company ,let alone the highly elegant ,immaculately groomed Pursers ( Red,Yellow and Velvet dresses with the pearl necklace !) .

    Tons of fantastic memories I had on board CX flights are sure to bring me back on board soon to revive that Golden Era that I would really love to believe ,still exists .

    The care and attention I used to receive on CX flights ,rivaling Singapore Airlines in almost every aspect of on board service was a feature CX was always proud of over the years !

    See you CX ,soon onboard !

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    cwoodward
    Participant

    [postquote quote=1366796]

    Cathay retained many cabin crew through the 2.5 years the airline was able to operate at little more than 10% of its flights.

    Others were paid a retainer although their was no work for them but others were let go and found that there skills were very saleable in front line sales and marketing positions. Such was the demand that many on the basic retainer also left as they realised that they could earn very good salaries in the general market.

    The above left the airline needing to find train many hundreds of new young cabin crew quickly. Although you can train new recruits and well you cannot train experience or a companies ethos so fast.
    It is this and an opportunistic aggressive poorly led union that caused the recent problem.
    The crew members in question were recent young Hong Kong Cantonese recruits working in economy on a short haul(it seems boisterous) Mandarin speaking tourist flight from China who became overwhelmed, stressed and annoyed. T
    They it seems forgot their training.

    Questions need to be asked perhaps about the more senior crew and FSM’s performance on the day but probably not so much about the airline or its crew training.
    The largely irrelevant other issues were optimistically raised by the local union but made good fodder for the media

    In my view just an unfortunate isolated incident that underscores the difficulties of getting an airline back to full operation


    HKFlyer
    Participant

    The union being characterised as “militant” is of course a perception that stems from Cathay’s aversion to dealing with unions. The relationship between staff and management is adversial rather than one that is looking for mutual interests being met.

    [postquote quote=1364141]


    cwoodward
    Participant

    C in M – The fact that Cathay recovered to be 9th in the Airline ratings is a remarkable achievement given that the airline was virtually closed for two and a half years and only to started the recovery process some 4 months prior to these rankings. It is in any case a very odd list when JAL is at 19 Air New Zealand at 1 KLM at 23 !

    HKflyer – It has been a long time since Cathay had any sort of strike which is more than can be said for many of its competitors. Over many years the airline as had remarkably little in the way of serious industrial disputes.


    AMcWhirter
    Participant

    As a follow on from my original post Reuters reports that mainland cabin crew will be recruited, there will be a greater use of Mandarin and all crew would be given “cultural training.”

    Similar news is reported by Bloomberg but that lies behind a strict paywall.

    https://www.reuters.com/business/aerospace-defense/cathay-pacific-hire-cabin-attendants-mainland-china-july-2023-06-19/


    cwoodward
    Participant

    Alex, I believe that the Cathay communication referred to flights to/from China and Mandarin is of course spoken in several Asian countries and particularly in Singapore and Taiwan. In the event I suspect that as now the bulk of Mandarin speakers will be drawn from these countries.

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