Our Market

[kenfoggo]

Sam Ting Wong , OK I see where the disconnect lies, you still think that CX is a five star ,premium airline. Many staff and increasing numbers of customers do not.

[EFIS Check]

............

[Sam Ting Wong]

Dan,

with all respect, it is not true what you are saying, it simply isn't. We still have a low attrition rate, that is a fact you can't deny. Please show me the numbers to prove your point, and I hope you have them, I really do.

Kenfoggo,

yes I still think we are in the premium segment. Time will tell who is right, and more importantly if it matters.

[EFIS Check]

Ken
really !? "five star" does NOT mean it's great, good - it means it has been categorized by skytrex as being such The world's 5 Star Airlines | SKYTRAX

I grant you that it is like any other award. Once you meet the minimum standard you have to pay enough to get the award and it is semi meaningless.

However, you really think that CX has/ is a bad product ? Have you recently flown on a NAM or EUR airline - try KLM, LH, AA and tell me what you think. CX is not the best but it is certainly up there. It is not about being the best, it is about being a little better than most and CX does that.

Nobody can compete with the ME carriers, which are state owned, state run and not accountable to anybody but the guy dressed in nighty with a falcon on his arm.
- Profit desirable but not essential. The bedroom thing on EY may just turn out to be a vanity and marketing project
- Cheap state loans (aircraft financing, etc.)
- No Labor laws to speak of (HK ist not great either but at least they pretend well and the ME is in a different league)
- Cheap labor and no supply shortage - not only pilots and FA ....
- Cheap fuel - anybody really thinks that they pay the same for gas as let's say UA ?
- The Chairman and the regulator is the same person - The CAD is not the poster child either but again the ME are in a different league of conflicts of interest (e.g. bunk time does not count towards your monthly or annual FTL limits, etc.)
- State support from infrastructure to political backing
.... great product ... cheap price ... who can compete ?!

I cannot believe that some here miss the obvious.
Best airline on the planet (from an award/ PAX perspective) does not mean best pilot job on the planet. The two have little to do with each other. Ask the EK, QR guys how they are enjoying the experience, or ALL the SQ expat guys who were terminated at little notice a few years ago. Same bs, different place. It is not necessarily this lot that is less than ideal it is the entire industry and the way our system works.
For all I care I go and work a LCC for as long as they give me a good lifestyle, a good package, a good and stable career, they don't interfere too much with me trying to do my job as best as I can, back me up when I need it and make the guy setting next to me competent and pleasant.
What do I care if the person who serves the man sitting in 1A has had a 1 day crash course at the Savoy and now the marketing-idiots call him "sky buttler" or some other meaningless drivel, if they only use the most refined Egyptian cotton as napkins, or if they get picked up at home by the space shuttle. It has ZERO impact on the quality of my career so why get people so worked up about it ? I would grant you that a bad product at a high price won't sell but CX is a reasonable product (but getting worse) at a reasonable price.

Blowing +US$ 1.000.000.000 in one year on a very unique fuel hedging strategy does not help anybody, apart from the guy who sold it to them, who I presume is now sitting on some nice little island enjoying himself. But the money has to be clawed back from somewhere OR SOMEBODY. If every earplug saves us 5 US cents and we save 1000 every day, we'll have the money back in no time........ 54.800 years. In the meantime they will try to find a quicker way.....

[kenfoggo]

Efis Check - how naive! There is a direct correlation between how a company treats it's customers and how it treats it's staff.

[Brown Nose]

Mmmmm, flew with Emirates recently. Economy food was better than CX business food, for my pallet. According to my anus the next day it was better than CX first class. CX premium airline? No longer, STW please share some of your drugs, I might start enjoying my job again.

[Sam Ting Wong]

Economy at EK better than our First class..

Just when you think you heard it all..

[Yonosoy Marinero]

ME carriers are difficult to compete with. They simply operate in a different reality by being a state-owned and run airline. A CEO's dream

Yet I, for one, would much rather have Tim Clark as the CEO of my outfit than whatshisface whose only ability seems to be that of making cringeworthy TV interviews.

- State prestige object - profit desirable not essential. That sky bedroom may just turn out be a marketing and vanity project.

Yet, profits they make. Aplenty.

- No real labor laws

Because CX is having a hard time with HK's extremely stringent labour laws? Please...

- Cheap fuel

That applies to everybody these days, unless your managers were idiotic enough to hedge fuel at its historical high... But what competent management team would do that?

- Cheap (state) loans

I will actually give you that one, as well as the infrastructure support and ideal geographical location as EK's main advantages. Yet the market was there, and no one was bold enough or had the foresight to dig into it.
EK was adventurous where they saw potential, whereas in comparison, CX has been lazily resting on its laurels for much of the past 2 decades, promoting conservatism as their main business model. What a great strategy...

- Cheap and unlimited labor supply

I wonder whether the ME3s are the only airline where wannabe pilots and F/As fall over themselves to accept sub-par contracts...?

- Full state support for everything from infrastructure to political backing, etc.

It's not like CX could ever make the civil aviation regulators help solve their crewing issues or have the local government prevent a competitor from entering their market, right?
(Yes, I enjoy sarcastic comments)

- The Chairman of the airline and the man who runs the state "regulator is the same guy"

Read above.

I'm no EK apologist. Quite the contrary in fact.
But for whatever the foul-play accusers say, EK is a successful business model. And yes, their premium product blows CX's out of the water.

On the other hand, agressive cost cutting for the sake of the exercise and not much else has been the norm over here for a while now, and only someone who doesn't work for CX could not understand or see the impact it has had on the service and product offered to the punters.

Of course it all depends on how the airline markets itself. But if CX continues to position itself at the very top end of the price range while they keep relying heavily on front end loads for yields, then it behooves them to stay at the sharp end of the customer experience offering.
It could just be my cynical self, but it seems many of my colleagues seem to share the view that they are very much not doing that at all.

It has ZERO impact on the quality of my career.

And that's the main problem with your argument. You're missing the point completely.

I could fly goats across the desert on a DC-3 if the pay and conditions were the same. Hell, I'd probably even have fun doing it, for a change.

People aren't slagging off CX's shortfall for the sake of it.
Believe it or not, many once felt proud of working for them.
The problem is that trust and confidence in the people who run the airline is in the process of being completely destroyed through their apparent lackadaisical and/or inept management and corporate greed.

You can keep not caring that the first class passenger keeps getting woken up by galley noise and smell after being served an average-at-most meal, or that the business class pax sitting at the end doesn't get his meal choice because the airline is too cheap to carry enough, but when they start leaving for the competition, and the yields start dropping, and the numbers turn to red, and we're asked to make sacrifices 'to help', and the agressive cost cutting continues into an downwards spiral of irony, and the assets are sold off, and the layoffs start, and the main stakeholders lose interest and sell the charred remains to Air China, then, maybe, you might care.

But what do I know? I'm just a stupid employee.
You should ask the shareholders why they're worried...

[Foxdeux]

Cathay Pacific, the No Nonsense Premium Airline.

[BillytheKid]

Sam Ting Wong-

It seems you are conflating pilot attitudes with airline management. The two are mutually exclusive in regards to your opinion.

I find your opinion ignorant and ill-informed regarding airline management as it contradicts principles that have been proven in the industry for many decades. I have little interest in debating with you as I find your points to be nothing more than rambling unproven opinions. Should you wish to offer some form of proof that any of your contentions regarding airline economics work, then I am happy to listen.

[Sam Ting Wong]

I find your opinion ignorant and ill-informed regarding airline management as it contradicts principles that have been proven in the industry for many decades.

??

If you are willing to describe more precisely which principles and opinions you are talking of I will reply.

I totally agree we should concentrate on facts and evidence rather than opinions ( which is why I am still waiting on the " well documented A380 effect " geh065 was mentioning above).

I habe no interest at all to base my arguments solely on opinion, I can assure you of that.

This sounds interesting, bring it on.

[BillytheKid]

STW-

Given your numerous unsupported opinions that contradict airline management conventional thinking, the oneous is on you to back up what you assert.

I bring you no such fight to "bring on," I merely respond to your baseless assertions that we pilots are dilusional for thinking our management team improve the airline.

[LongTimeInCX]

Is this the man who was also known as 'the mirror man' (back in Kai Tak days), as his normal response was " I'll look into it!"

[Sam Ting Wong]

Billy, great debating skills, nice talking to you, and really very convincing.

[VR-HFX]

Some men are born mediocre, some men achieve mediocrity and some men have mediocrity thrust upon them. With Mirror Man it was all three.

With apologies to Joseph Heller.