Originally Posted by
Trafalgar
The truth of the matter is that CX is beginning a slow and inexorable decline. They have never really been 'well' managed. They have succeeded only because of their privileged position in HK, basically a monopoly, that is now being unwound by the government and the pressure of competitors like Emirates. Instead of focusing on growth and product, they are institutionally blinded by a need to 'manage', and spend all their effort and energy on waging war on the very employees that have basically allowed the airline to function as well as it has over the past decades. Now, the dysfunction at the top has caused those same employees to actively work against the airlines long term interests, resulting in the airline stagnating at just the point in history where it most needs all areas of the operation to be functioning as an efficient and productive machine. On top of that, the always present fallacy of building an airport at CLK is becoming apparent, as it can never provide the operational flexibility needed. Even a third runway is pointless, as it too will be at capacity the day it opens. Meanwhile, Emirates and all the other Gulf carriers will be operating from ever expanding modern airports, with better aircraft and a much better product (who really believes our 'first' class is anything compared to Emirates first class product on the 380?). Our management should be focusing on making sure we are expanding to all the markets that we can make money in, and not worrying about the incremental cost of employing competent and experienced aircrew. Soon, many of us are going to wake up to the fact that the only viable career (one where you can afford to be married, have children and put money away for retirement) will be with the dominant Gulf carriers. That is probably the story for the next 20-30 years, until the next sea-change of revolution takes place in the industry. CX had it's time from the 80's through to the 2010's. They probably can't survive with the myopic and incestuous Swire mindset still fighting their 18th century 'mill owner' battles against their employees instead of realising that their real danger is growing at twice their rate, with better hubs, better aircraft, better regulators and better management. Nine weeks profit share....sounds like they at least want to find a way to show their employees that they have a reason to work there. Who at CX is deluded enough to believe they have a career here anymore?
Even though I do agree with you regarding CX, it's poor management, and its employees relations.
I will have to respectfully disagree with you regarding CX strategy vs EK. CX strategy is doing just fine really, our hard product (and yes that include first class), are consistently rated highly. Most travel blogger (ie: One Mile At A Time Blog, Boarding Gate, etc) consistently rate CX First ahead of EK First. EK first class might look nice in pictures but the seat is claustrophobic at best, and the soft product and their crew are no where as good as CX. EK Economy Class on the 777 are rated so poorly due to their 10 across seating that many travel website refuses to give them a 5 star rating (ask SkyTrax), most traveller complains about their lack of space on EK 777 fleet. The only redeeming point for EK is their A380, and even with the A380, EK is now evaluating 11 seat across for Economy Class in the lower deck. The whole business model of EK is build on flying to as many places as possible and jam as many passenger as possible on their planes so that they have a pricing advantage against their competitor. EK is know to have poor timing for all the connections in Dubai with most connecting pax having to wait 3 or more hours to connect, this is because they often only one frequency to most of the places they fly to. This is completely opposite to CX strategy of offering our passenger amazing connections. Most of CX Aus / NZ to Europe, or China / India / South East Asia to North American connections require only one hour in HK for transit. This is why CX can get better yield and thus allow CX to have a relatively low passenger number for their 777.
On top of all that, there is now a collective push against the ME3. In the next 10 years, I can assure you that the ME3 won't be expanding as fast as they have been. Also they are running into their own employee problem as well but they are lucky they their labour laws is even worse then those in Hong Kong, which helps Ek significantly.