Cathay Pacific does not expect to return to normal levels of flying for at least another two years, underscoring the slow return of travel in parts of Asia and Hong Kong’s fragile status as a global hub. The airline plans to resume its pre-pandemic capacity in full by the end of 2024 or early 2025, said Ronald Lam, chief customer and commercial officer at Cathay Pacific. “We still have to look at the supply and demand situation, so it will take time to ramp up,” he said. Cathay has been one of Hong Kong’s biggest corporate casualties from the pandemic border closures which have undermined the city’s status as Asia’s premier financial hub. Until last month Hong Kong followed China in implementing an incoming traveller quarantine and closing its borders to tourists. The restrictions grounded much of Cathay’s passenger capacity and the airline sent dozens of idle aircraft to the Australian desert to sit out the pandemic. Lam said Cathay and Hong Kong had “suffered”, but welcomed a “very obvious pick-up in bookings” for the rest of the year that has outpaced expectations since the government announced the end of hotel quarantine. But he said more people were booking to leave Hong Kong rather than fly in because of lingering restrictions, including PCR tests and bans from restaurants and bars for the first three days after arrival. “The pent up demand of the Hong Kong people has been unleashed. The demand from visitors has picked up. But it hasn’t shown the full potential yet,” he said. Virgin Atlantic this month said it would leave Hong Kong, while Willie Walsh, the former head of British Airways who now runs the global airlines lobby group, recently said he believed Hong Kong has lost its status as an aviation hub. “Hong Kong has lost its position . . . and will struggle to regain it because other hubs have taken advantage of it,” he said. Lam disagreed, pointing at the expansion of the city’s airport and “very strong backyard” of Chinese commercial hubs, and said Cathay’s future is inextricably linked to Hong Kong’s.<br/>
oneworld
Just over 1,000 people have signed up for Cathay Pacific Airways Ltd.’s flight attendant recruiting drive, around half of the 2,000 targeted by the end of 2023, underscoring the labor challenges the airline faces as it seeks to to fully restore flights in and out of the Asian financial hub. Cathay said it was satisfied with the expressions of interest so far, which started last month and continued on Friday at a hotel in Kowloon. “Given the whole industry has been in lockdown mode for the last two-and-a-half years, receiving over 1,000 applications I think is actually very good,” Cathay spokesman Andy Wong said. “As industry sentiments change and travel sentiment changes, we’ll be able to attract more people.” 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% to 16,200 as of 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% 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.<br/>
Qantas chief executive Alan Joyce has said that Project Sunrise direct flights from Australia’s east coast are likely to begin with New York and not London. In comments reported by Bloomberg, Joyce revealed the British capital would follow next, despite its current flights there being its most iconic ‘Kangaroo’ service, and one of the first routes restarted post-COVID. Project Sunrise is the codename for the airline’s plan to fly non-stop to far-away destinations using a new fleet of 12 specially adapted A350-1000s. The service is set to begin “by the end of the calendar year 2025” from Sydney. Speaking at the World Aviation Festival in Amsterdam, Joyce also said there had been no indication the aircraft’s deliveries could be delayed and was “quite happy” with his communication with Airbus. However, he indicated he would speak to the planemaker’s CE, Guillaume Faury, about how “on track” the A350s are. The already ultra-long-haul aircraft will need to be adapted to house additional fuel tanks to make the 20-hour flight. “I think every airline would be after certainty on the time-frames,” he said, adding that if deliveries come “a month later, it doesn’t make much difference, if it’s six months or a year, that can make a big difference.”<br/>