you cannot just raise fares with such high competition without doing something to the product.
Agreed!!!
As this all began with a debate about management crying about the difficult challenges we face, let's take a 10 year re-cap of the product "evolution", and the results of the short term outlook of managers lloking to secure this year's bonus:
- Cabin crew are an integral part of the "product", yet we've seen a continual degredation of conditions for them.
Although it will never be admitted, the recruitment profile has changed to attract enough people at the new package. Sure, there are some very good ones there, but averaged overall, the standard of applicant is lower than ever. Next time you go flying, ask the hourly paid crew about their package. It will shock you! Comments on another thread about if you doubled their pay, they'd still complain are correct, because it'll still be the same employees. Things need to start at the entry level with higher standards.
We used to market ourselves as an International Airline with a Chinese flavour, which was (and still can be) unique. However, as a result of the draconian cost cutting, for about 8 or 9 years, there was no non-HK recuitment. Nothing against the Honkees, but we started to lose our diversity, and drifted towards looking like another mainland carrier every day. Thankfully, someone deided a few years ago to start recruiting outside HK again. BUT, in a "brilliant" moment, they decided to give these non-HK crew 7 years of housing. So, at the end of that 7 year period, many (not all) will probably leave, diluting the long-term diversity and experience pool of the crew.
- Cabin product is no doubt a major selling point, but look at the ongoing debacles with ours.
At least 3 attempts to get a "new" business class. Each time they tout how good it is in intra-CX, yet they've been a total disaster, and at how much cost??? $$$$$$$$$$$
It seems that they might have got it right on this latest one, time will tell.
Economy "shell" seats. Good in theory, but not very comfotable on anything other than a regional sector.
P-EY, basically using the old regional business class style seat. Bit early to tell, but it seems feed back is mixed, at best.
IFE, what a disaster. No IFE on the ground, in fact nothing until about 20 minutes after take-off, and then nothing for the final 20 minutes on descent. I know the cabin is being secured for landing, but premium passengers get to watch IFE on the ground with other airlines
And the reliability of the IFE systems is very patchy. Come on guys, in this modern day worls of solid-state electrical devices, surly you can find a more reliable system. In fact, some of the regional fleet are still fitted with a bank of VCR tape player. Who the hell still uses those??? No wonder IFE is poor.
- Cockpit crew are still one of the major marketing factors for CX, yet look at the way our conditions have deteriorated over the past years. Very occasional raises, nowhere near the inflation rate, although, according to management, our increments are our pay raise. Reduced benefits for new joiners - experienced expats on local terms, and bonded for 6 years. Lets see what happens in 6 years when they have about 1000 hrs in the right seat of a widebody. The concept of 0 hour local cadets (ie HKID card holders) being on some sort of local package makes sense, but to exend that philosophy across the board makes the short term balance sheet look good, but the long term detriment to the experience pool is devastating.
- Treatment of customers is key to a service business like ours, so someone in an office has decided that OTP is the god to which we should all bow, and use as a metric of our customer performance. Yes, OTP is important to the customer, but having ground staff get the last few passengers to run down the air-bridge is not only a safety issue, but what sort of image does it give of the company??
So, to summarize, in a competitive market in a service industry, you need a top notch product. CX's overall product has taken a downward slide for many years - death by a thousand paper cuts.
For years, long-term staff (such as pilots) have been predicting that the people who've earned big bonuses for short-term savings won't be here when the real effects bear fruit. I'm pretty sure that messers Turnbull, Chen & Tyler are no longer with CX
So, next time
JS and the managers start bemoaning the fact that premium traffic is down, let's suggest that they seek a repayment back to the company of the bonuses given for the decisions that have lead us here.