From ALPA's "Airline Pilot" publication April/June 2002.
https://www.alpa.org/internet/alp/20...ne2002p20.html
Return to Hong Kong—Four Decades Later
Being treated like an international celebrity is fun.
When Capt. John "Curly" Culp of Delta asked if I would talk to the Cathay Pacific pilots, who were "great fans" of my books, I agreed. Talk’s mostly what professors do.
So on March 9, my wife Elaine and I touched down in Hong Kong for the first time in 39 years. In 1963, we spent a week of R&R there, courtesy of Uncle Sam.
A pilot with a classic Australian accent (nameless because of the climate of intimidation) escorted us to the Hong Kong Marco Polo Hotel. We needed rest after United’s nonstop flight from O’Hare (which is billed the world’s longest).
Recovering from jet lag by doing touristy things, we took a day trip to the city formerly known as Canton (something we couldn’t do when it was behind the Bamboo Curtain) and tried to watch the harbor again from the Peninsula Hotel bar in Kowloon. But new construction built on landfill now blocks that once-famous view.
Air pollution is serious. The view from atop the Victoria Peak Tramway was smog-obscured throughout February, raising news media alarm over its effect on tourism. The smog comes from mainland China, where pollution controls on industry do not exist.
Cathay Pacific’s pilots mostly live in the expatriate community on Lantau Island, far enough out to lessen the effect on their children’s health, a little. Even if IFALPA had not banned pilot recruitment at Cathay Pacific, I would warn any pilot with children about accepting a job there.
The Cathay Pacific pilot group is an extraordinarily capable bunch, likeable, gregarious, "shrimps on the barbie" types. They’re well-read and articulate, interested in history generally, not just ALPA’s.
The radicalization they’ve undergone resembles the similar awakening of United’s pilots in the 1980s and Delta’s in the 1990s. Cathay Pacific’s pilots are quick to draw parallels between Frank Lorenzo and David Turnbull, the "Swire Prince" whose assault on their wages and working conditions has destroyed what was once the premier pilot job in Asia. A "Swire Prince" is a "comer" in that corporation’s fiercely anti-union executive ranks.
During two lengthy "focus groups" with Cathay Pacific’s pilots, I was amazed at their knowledge of ALPA’s history. Comparisons of Lorenzo and Turnbull prefaced many questions. "Why do they do these things, so unnecessary and counterproductive?" was the recurrent theme. This rhetorical lament has a long history, as does the puzzling behavior of managers whom Cathay Pacific pilots call "pilot haters."
Why can’t the Lorenzos and Turnbulls of the world learn that warring on pilots, the most cooperative, management-oriented unionized workers in the world, is unwise? Did Lorenzo’s destruction of ALPA at Continental benefit him? Continental’s back in ALPA, and Lorenzo is disgraced—gone like Eastern, thanks to his own incompetence, documented by the bankruptcy court.
Many Cathay Pacific pilots are Aussie refugees from Ansett Airlines. In 1989, Ansett broke its pilots’ union. Cathay Pacific’s pilots are aware of the similarities between Sir Peter Abeles and Frank Lorenzo, between Prime Minister Bob Hawke and the senior George Bush. Management "won" both disputes, but with the same result. Ansett ceased to exist in February 2002, despite its nonunion pilot force. History repeating itself again—first as tragedy, then as farce.
Perhaps history’s "lesson" is that any manager who can’t find common ground with pilots, who have far more at stake in the success of their airlines than any manager ever will, cannot successfully manage an airline under any circumstance—unionized or not. Call it a "marker for failure," and you’re not far off the truth.
After meeting with nearly 200 Cathay Pacific pilots and their families, I’m more than ever convinced that Capt. Merle "Skip" Eglet (Northwest, Ret.) was right when he said: "If I live to be a hundred, I’ll never understand why Lorenzo did the things he did."
Cathay Pacific’s pilots are no closer to understanding Turnbull.—GH