Where's Ivan?
 

Our esteemed leader is MIA.
Has he been in hiding to try to stabilise the stock price?
I have gone short on CX and really need him back in front of the media.

But investors are expected to believe that losing 12billion dollars is a good thing, so if that's all true maybe consider a long position???
Then again, lack of trust in corporate management is normally one of three main reason not to invest, so that on its own will be keeping the share price down for some time to come.

Ivan Who??

To be fair Rupert Hogg is looking very stressed. Flights full, low fuel price, and still losing money. He probably knows what needs to be done (remove 20-30% of management, focus on the customer, modernise internally) but my guess is that Ivan doesn't want to be the CEO that breaks the Kitty City iron rice bowl.

The hedging losses would bankrupt most companies. Our deep pockets are keeping us alive.

Management is realizing that they have made the biggest hedging blunder in aviation history and there is not even a close second to use for cover.

Ford had their Edsel and there is still a Ford.

More concerning is the lack of efficiency, people sitting instead of flying, rosters which promote a form of continuous reserve vice an asset management strategy, and failure to make peace with the entities that make the toys go. Losing bizness due to lost opportunity, lack of expansion capability (indeed even losing ground due to lack of manning for the very expensive assets which now sit), and devaluation of the brand are the troubling real issues.

Maybe Rupert Hogg is looking stressed because he was on that flight back in the Typhoon the other day..

Rumour has it he was moved aside two to three weeks ago.

He was truly sleeping at the wheel, he must rate as one of the worst CEO's in Cx history. Every time we have a local CEO , we go down the Chinese low cost avenue, we order crap cabin seats, fight with all of our staff groups and lose a boat of money on fuel hedges!

When are we going to learn from our past mistakes!

True, but not quite the full story. We've had a few non-local CEOs who've gone the slash & burn cheap-cheap-cheap avenue as well. Business class salt and pepper shakers anyone??
Regardless of their origin, they're all products of long-term employment and grooming for the big jobs by our parent company's management training system.... cough cough.

And to be fair, there's probably more than enough quality local candidates available, but they're not beneficiaries of the wonderful management training scheme, and therefore "don't understand the Cathay way"

It's Not Ivan
 

He isn't, or wasn't perhaps, making the decisions or blunders. He was simply the face and will be blamed and take the fall. RH and JS are the Captain and First mate of CX Titanic.

Has anyone noticed that since JS came here, and RH was promoted AND AT showed up some years ago, that this place started wobbling on the tracks way back then. Ivan was there but was a small wheel.

They needed a fall guy and they found one. I personally like the guy and have talked to him a few times, Yes, I know, shoot me!

Truthfully, the entire 9th and 3rd floors need to go. It's not only the financial side of things that are in a really really bad mess, but the operations (AND MOST CERTAINLY, TRAINING) that have fallen completely apart at the seams.

If things do not change soon, this company will go out of business.

The exodus off of CX Titanic began some time ago. It has been kept quiet but is now getting their attention. They are so set in their ways that they just absolutely refuse to acknowledge it or ask for help, get us onside so to speak. It would be a sign of weakness for them so they'd rather burn it to the ground.

It is just so utterly irresponsible AND offensive.

Where's Ivan
 

Ok, it appears Ivan is MIA at least for now. But I'm confused - who the hell is "Dane" ?

Apparently he is director of sales and marketing..... looks like a good kid.
His eyes look a little close together for my liking though.

Yep. A number of the more forward thinking office staff have been leaving recently in frustration about not being able to get things done/ make a difference. Leaving the old guard even more entrenched

..........and so Air China begins to circle the prey........

It will be a telling sign of him simply following Swire orders if he gets promoted out of this job. I agree with Vis, and think he was the guy slated to pop the share price with manic cost slashing and to speak Chinese with the new owners after the take over. Didn't quite work out like that of course.

Normal postings in Feb/March, a Turnbull level of scandal if they get rid of him sooner..

Spotted in Wan Chai at the mirror shops practising for his next Bloomberg interview.

Visionary,

you are spot on IMHO. I've had the same thoughts for a while now. JS was initially the one stating, that the high levels of experience (read expensive) in the cockpit are not necessary. RH was the one translating this thought into action by starting the "no experience" (read cheap) ab-initio program (without housing allowance and other expat perks).

Misteriously, little by little the passenger service items started to dissapppear....salt and pepper shakers..., salmon & caviar, etc.... Cut first class services and replaced them with business class only flights...

Then he put a lid on employee profit share almost as soon as he took over, put two non pilots as DFO and GMA (beats me, how that can be allowed at all)

A hardline strategy during pay negotiations resulted in the loss of A days on bases, 25 yr housing reneged on, etc...reduction of terms & conditions...result: loss off goodwill across all employee groups..

All this happened well before the current problems arose...Maybe some of the more openminded beancounters out there (I know, a rare species, but they still do exist) can open their eyes and finally see value of non-tangible assets, such as employee goodwill.

I don't know, but cause and effect seem to be pretty clear in this case. Looks like, that knowing the price of everything and the value of nothing is not such a great business plan after all.

Cheers

Where's Ivan
 

You used to be able to find them any night off the week at the "Volvo" club (now defunct) slamming back cognac shots and exchanging a Rolex or two with their Air China counterparts.
They've now gone underground....:ooh:

It's all very frustrating, annoying but mostly, just sad. I wish it wasn't so but it is.

Another Captain AND FO have been hired elsewhere and will be leaving in January. The momentum is, or has been building, for some time. Our most experienced are quitting, that's what's important here.

I think more have left in the past two and a half years than in the past or certainly a long tiime. In addition, the command failure rate is back up as well as a number of guys/gals turning down courses.

Now it appears, and maybe just to me, that the exodus is mostly on the Boeing fleet and particular the freighter. Now It could be the rosters or rostering but I personally think the fleet office has lost touch on the Boeing jets. It's more observation than anything. The confusion about approaches and the approach ban is enough to make anyone crazy.

I don't trust anyone on the third floor as it's just become nuts what's going on and when push comes to shove, we will see their true colors. We know where GL and the rest will side, hint; it's not with us! They are so disconnected now anyway.

I am hoping for the best but preparing (expecting) the worst. Kind of like the U.S. election cause look out tomorrow!

V - "the fleet office has lost touch"
 

Who cares about the fleet office and exactly why would you go to them with any issue whatsoever ??
They (both) have been stripped of any efficacy they ever once possessed, period, and are simply there to spank wrong doers.
Training offices are even worse off as they were neutered a long time ago as well and to get around that issue they invented positions like MTD&S, FTMD & CPT (:yuk:) which all operate at the behest of our latest GMF who is "appointed" by the DFO who is put in place by Ivan and his ilk. (just guess what the criteria to be a GM on the 3rd floor is ?)
The sad part is all the directors don't give a sh** or care that CX is an airline, to them it's just another business, same as tug boats in Borneo or Coke bottling plants in China....

Oh, and when they start to feel the pressure rising, out comes another "Survey" because they "care".... This one on Staff (thats a synonym for "local staff non-pilot") Travel... I can't wait to see the next set of "enhancements"...