How airlines, including Hong Kong’s Cathay Pacific, are navigating Covid-19

From delivering in-flight meals to residents near the airport to promoting plane merchandise, the Covid-19 pandemic has sparked creative efforts among major airlines to compensate, if only slightly, for the loss of their biggest income stream – ticket sales. Cathay Pacific has started offering doorstep food deliveries to nearby homes in the Tung Chung community in recent weeks. Its catering arm used to prepare 83,000 meals for passengers on 293 flights a day, or an average of 283 meals per flight, but there are now just a few dozen Hong Kong flights per day. On average just 22 passengers per plane came through Hong Kong’s airport throughout August. The meals-on-wheels scheme initially only targeted airport workers, but has been expanded to cover the nearby Tung Chung district, offering simple in-flight food for those craving airline meals. “We understand that many people working in the airport area are interested in being able to easily buy takeaway lunch and dinner meals to maintain proper social distancing [and we are] offering such takeaway services to people within the airport community and Tung Chung neighbourhood,” a Cathay spokeswoman said. A similar tactic has also been adopted by rival airline caterer Gate Gourmet, which turned to deliverable meals for the airport community so its kitchens there could continue running. In recent weeks, Cathay Pacific has rolled out a new range of merchandise online based around its retired Boeing 747 workhorse, in an even greater effort to push the airline group’s e-commerce sales among its 12 million Asia Miles members worldwide.<br/>