Cathay Pacific Airways said its performance in the first half of 2016 was “below expectations” as growth in the number of flyers failed to keep pace with an increase in capacity. The combined passenger load factor for Cathay Pacific and unit Dragonair fell by 1.7 percentage points to 85.5% in the period, the airline said. While the capacity increased 4.2%, the growth in passenger traffic was 2.7%. CE Ivan Chu said: “Passenger revenue has been adversely affected by the reduced load factor and intense pressure on yield. Cargo tonnage has stabilised but yield continues to decline.” The emergence of mainland Chinese carriers and many regional budget airlines are hurting premium operators such as Cathay Pacific and SIA. A rebound in crude oil prices this year may also weigh on earnings. <br/>
oneworld
Thousands of British Airways staff are to vote on whether to take industrial action after a "performance" scheme was introduced, according to the UK's biggest union. Unite said that around 8,800 cabin crew will vote on whether to take strike action over what it calls a new "bureaucratic" performance scheme that has led to fears over job losses. Members of the British Airlines Stewards and Stewardesses Association (BASSA), a section of Unite, will be voting for industrial action short of a strike in a bid to get management to suspend the introduction of the Dashboard Performance Management scheme. A consultative ballot has already shown that 94% of BASSA members supported some form of industrial action. <br/>
Sometimes it’s not stormy weather, security holdups or late cabin crews that delay flights. Instead, it could be trouble with the galley coffeepots. If one of the $7,000 to $20,000 coffee makers on the plane isn’t working, the ground crew needs to make sure there’s not an electrical problem that could cause a fire or other hazard. American Airlines is particularly intent on improving its departure-time ratings. American’s chief of operations, Robert Isom, said that an “inordinate amount of coffee maker problems” were causing short delays. Isom came to American as part of its merger in 2013 with US Airways, where he had helped achieve one of the industry’s best on-time records. But American’s on-time performance is only middling. <br/>
Qantas and the NSW govt have announced a A$28m deal which sees the pair work together to promote Sydney and regional NSW to the world. The airline and NSW govt are launching a digital marketing push, which will see the companies push social media and virtual reality to show people to best the state has to offer. The VR push will centre around Vivid, the light, music and ideas festival, and will see Destination NSW and Qantas launch a 3-stage digital marketing project aimed at driving early bookings in 2017. This new 3 year partnership extends a 3 year deal, which was originally inked in 2013. Qantas International CE Gareth Evans said the airline had brought more than 1m international visitors to Sydney in 2015 – nearly double any other airline. <br/>
Investigators in Australia Monday were examining a wing flap found last month on an East African island that is suspected to be from the missing Malaysian airliner, officials said. The "large piece of aircraft debris" arrived at the Australian Transport Safety Bureau headquarters in Canberra for examination as part of the search for Malaysia Airlines Flight 370. Australian technical specialists were working with Malaysian investigators to determine whether the debris was from the Boeing 777 that vanished March 8, 2014. The Transport Safety Bureau has so far examined 4 pieces of debris and found that they were almost certainly from Flight 370, which is thought to have crashed in the Indian Ocean southwest of Australia. <br/>