TheJoker Posted October 20, 2020 Share Posted October 20, 2020 Cathay Pacific to cut 6,000 jobs, axe Dragon brand 20/10/2020 HONG KONG (Reuters) - Cathay Pacific Airways Ltd will cut around 6,000 jobs, or 18 per cent of its workforce, and axe regional brand Cathay Dragon to help it weather the coronavirus pandemic, the South China Morning Post reported on Tuesday, citing sources. The airline said in June it was reviewing its strategy in light of the travel downturn, with "tough decisions" to be announced during the fourth quarter and analysts expected it would announce major job cuts. That month the Hong Kong government also led a US$5 billion rescue package for the airline, which has been burning through around HK$1.5 billion to HK$2 billion of cash a month. The South China Morning Post said the airline was expected to announce the job cuts on Wednesday, adding the figure had been reduced from 8,000 layoffs after government intervention. The newspaper, citing unidentified sources, said the airline will sacrifice Cathay Dragon but staff and resources of the two airlines would be merged. Cathay declined to comment. The airline last month said it would not apply for further government employment subsidies for its main business units, allowing it to make job cuts at Cathay Pacific and Cathay Dragon, though not at budget carrier HK Express. Cathay had refrained from major job cuts but Singapore Airlines Ltd has announced plans to cut around 20 per cent of positions, while Australia's Qantas Airways Ltd has said it will cut nearly 30 per cent of its pre-pandemic staff. Cathay has sent around 40 per cent of its passenger fleet to less humid locations outside Hong Kong for storage. On Monday, the airline said it expected to operate less than 50 per cent of its pre-pandemic passenger flight capacity in 2021. Passenger numbers in September fell 98.1 per cent compared with a year earlier due to border closures, though cargo carriage was down by only 36.6 per cent. https://www.straitstimes.com/business/companies-markets/cathay-pacific-to-cut-6000-jobs-axe-dragon-brand?utm_term=Autofeed&utm_campaign=sttw&utm_medium=Social&utm_source=Twitter#Echobox=1603196745 Quote Link to post Share on other sites
A345_Leadership Posted October 20, 2020 Share Posted October 20, 2020 Se fechar a KA será a primeira vez em quase 40 anos que a Cathay Pacific usará narrowbodies. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Cassio.Fernandes Posted October 20, 2020 Share Posted October 20, 2020 RIP DragonAir. Apesar que ela já tinha sido extinta após a troca de nome. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
TheJoker Posted October 21, 2020 Author Share Posted October 21, 2020 By David Flynn, October 21 2020 Cathay Pacific has delayed the delivery of its Boeing 777-9 jets to "beyond 2025" as part of a sweeping restructure of the airline, which will also see the Cathay Dragon brand shut down. The Oneworld member has 21 Boeing 777-9 jetliners on order, with deliveries previously slated to begin in 2021 and stream through to 2024. However, Boeing announced on July 30 that the launch of the already-delayed 777X will take place sometime in 2022. Greg Hughes, Chief Operations and Service Delivery Officer for the Cathay Pacific Group, told media on August 12 "we're in discussions with Boeing about a deferral of the 777-9 program (but) not a cancellation of it... it's a deferral of all 21 aircraft." In an update today, Cathay Pacific Group Chairman Patrick Healy revealed "the delivery of the 777-9 fleet has been postponed beyond 2025". Suites and seats also delayed The Boeing 777-9 was intended to become Cathay's new flagship, and also serve as the launchpad for all-new first class suites and business class seats. Cathay had yet to reveal exactly what was planned for its Boeing 777-9, although those plans would likely be locked in by now, given the necessary lead-time in designing, testing, manufacturing and certifying each seat. The airline has previously told Executive Traveller that its Boeing 777-9s will be crowned by an all-new first class cabin, to replace the current long-lived design which debuted in 2007 – which will make it almost 20 years old by the time the first Boeing 777-9 takes wing. https://www.executivetraveller.com/news/cathay-pacific-boeing-777x-delivery-delayed By David Flynn, October 21 2020 Cathay Pacific will begin flying the new Airbus A321neo by the end of this year as the airline inherits the entire fleet – new and old – of regional sibling Cathay Dragon, which is being closed down 'with immediate effect". 16 A321neo jets have been ordered for Cathay Dragon, with the first two due for delivery in the next two months. Those aircraft will also see the debut of a new regional business class seat, which – like the current Cathay Dragon seat – is expected to be a recliner rather than a fully lie-flat bed. According to the group's latest fleet plan, four more A321neo jets are headed for the Hong Kong hangars in 2021, with 10 to follow in 2022 "and beyond." https://www.executivetraveller.com/news/cathay-pacific-airbus-a321neo-business-class Quote Link to post Share on other sites
A345_Leadership Posted October 21, 2020 Share Posted October 21, 2020 Na real, a CX/KA não fazia mais sentido. A Dragonair tinha serviços bem similares ao da mainline, seu principal trunfo era as concessões para a China e uma forma da CX operar em mercados que ela não tinha capacidade de operar, como Kota Kinabalu. Situação semelhante ao da SIA/SilkAir. 2 Quote Link to post Share on other sites
A345_Leadership Posted October 22, 2020 Share Posted October 22, 2020 How protests and pandemic pushed Cathay to the brink By Alfred Chua21 October 2020 Cathay Pacific’s announcement today that it is shedding 8,500 jobs and closing its Cathay Dragon brand is the culmination of more than a year of strife at the Hong Kong carrier, with the industry-wide upheaval of the coronavirus crisis adding to the financial pain already being caused by local political unrest. Roll back to the beginning of last year though and the airline appeared to be turning a corner: yields were on an upward trajectory, passenger demand was healthy, and its transformation efforts appeared to be paying off. The success of the restructuring was reflected in Cathay’s full-year results for 2018, which showed saw a swing back into the black. It also acquired HK Express in March 2019, allowing an expansion into the low-cost market. Six months later, Hong Kong was veiled in clouds of tear gas as anti-government protesters took on the authorities and any momentum Cathay had bled away. As the protests – over an unpopular proposed extradition bill – wore on, Cathay began to feel the heat. In early August, the carrier announced a significant number of flight cancellations out of Hong Kong, initially caused by an air traffic control strike. But on 12 August, protests hit fever pitch, with protesters occupying large swathes of Hong Kong’s airport. That meant that all flights, including Cathay’s, were cancelled. Days later, in yet another unexpected twist, the airline’s chief executive Rupert Hogg and chief customer and commercial officer Paul Loo announced their resignations, caught up in a controversy over crew members taking part in the anti-government protests. August was also the month where the first signs of financial stress became apparent, with Cathay warning that the protests could dent its revenue for the month. In addition, the month also marked the start of a traffic tailspin that the carrier has been unable to arrest. Inbound traffic declined 38% year on year in August 2019, traditionally a strong month for the carrier. Yields, which months ago were climbing, also took a hit. Source: Shutterstock Cathay Pacific and Hong Kong Airlines jets parked up at Hong Kong International airport The carrier trimmed its capacity growth for the rest of the year in order to cope with the impact of the protests. A month later, Cathay flagged weaker financial results for the second half of the year, as continued unrest dragged its revenue down. September saw lower load factors and passenger numbers than August, and marked the third straight month of weaker traffic. By November, the carrier announced it was pushing back the delivery of four Airbus A320neo-family aircraft originally set to join its subsidiaries HK Express and Cathay Dragon in 2020 – the first of many deferrals to come. The following month, the carrier announced it would cut seat capacity by 1.4% year on year in 2020 as Hong Kong’s political troubles and trade tensions hurt the airline in key markets. “Rather than growing our airlines in 2020, for the first time in a long time our airlines will reduce in size,” said newly installed chief executive Augustus Tang. FROM ONE CRISIS TO ANOTHER While the protests abated by the end of the year, they meant that Cathay ended 2019 in an already weakened state. Without the cushion of a period of sustained profitability, what came next would and threaten the airline’s very existence. Cathay, and its associate carriers, entered the new year amid growing prominence of a novel coronavirus outbreak originating in mainland China. By end-January, the mainline carrier, along with subsidiaries Cathay Dragon and HK Express, had halved capacity to 24 points in mainland China, as part of special arrangements made by the Hong Kong government. Traffic figures, already impacted by the protests, plunged further – at first gradually in January, then showing a rapid collapse from February. By March, Cathay was only flying a “bare skeleton” network of just 15 destinations, as it hunkered down amid the crisis. The carrier warned that its financial results for the first half of 2020 would be significantly impacted by the outbreak, disclosing an unaudited loss of more than HK$2 billion for February alone. Cash burn was initially at a rate of around HK$2.5 billion to HK$3 billion ($0.3 billion to $0.4 billion) a month, although that has since been brought down by cost-cutting measures. Things got bleaker as the months rolled by: in April, Cathay despondently said it was “impossible to predict” when passenger demand would recover from the coronavirus crisis. The following month, it said it did not “anticipate… a meaningful recovery for an extended period”. Source: Shutterstock Grounded Cathay Pacific jets A sliver of hope came in June, when the Hong Kong government stepped in with a financial lifeline, as part of the airline’s group HK$39 billion recapitalisation plan. Cathay chairman Patrick Healy said that the recapitalisation was crucial for the carrier’s survival, without which the airline would have collapsed. The carrier’s financial results for the first half of this year were predictably disastrous – it reported a staggering operating loss of HK$8.7 billion, with Healy calling it the “most challenging” period for the group in its 70-year history. Traffic has continued to remain at extremely low levels in recent months, particularly given that the airline had no domestic market to fall back upon. Cathay deferred delivery of new Airbus and Boeing aircraft and parked about 40% of its fleet in long-term storage overseas. In addition, the carrier embarked on a business review that would see determine the “final shape and size” of the group. That process culminated on 21 October, when Cathay announced the job losses – 2,600 unfilled posts would be axed, along with 5,900 redundancies – and the closure of Cathay Dragon, an operation which began life as Dragonair in 1985. These measures will help the carrier reduce monthly cash burn further, says Healy, with the axeing of Cathay Dragon allowing the group to better align its product offerings. The carrier remains pessimistic of any recovery in the coming year, disclosing that it will likely only operate at up to half capacity in 2021, given the sluggish pace of rebound globally. https://www.flightglobal.com/airlines/how-protests-and-pandemic-pushed-cathay-to-the-brink/140720.article Quote Link to post Share on other sites
A345_Leadership Posted October 27, 2020 Share Posted October 27, 2020 Hong Kong bids farewell to its once-mighty Dragon airline Cathay unit founded as a symbol of Hong Kong's transition back to Chinese rule A Dragonair jet in 1998. Cathay Pacific said on Oct. 21 that it would shut down Cathay Dragon as a separate unit as part of a restructuring plan that involves cutting 8,500 positions. © AFP/Jiji MICHELLE CHAN and KENJI KAWASE, Nikkei staff writersOctober 27, 2020 13:20 JST HONG KONG -- Benson Wong Wai-kwok took his first-ever flight on Dragonair -- the predecessor to Cathay Dragon -- 27 years ago, forgoing the train and flying from Beijing back to his native Hong Kong after completing a summer course in China' capital. Dragonair's iconic red dragon logo carried a deeper meaning for Wong, who was a university student at the time. He traces his first memory of the airline to 1989, when Dragonair sent a chartered flight to Beijing to retrieve stranded Hong Kong journalists who had been covering the Tiananmen Square crackdown. "For this reason, I've always seen Dragonair as a symbol of Hong Kong," said Wong, a politics professor teaching at several universities in the city. "I just feel like it possesses more Hong Kong-ness than Cathay Pacific," he said of Cathay Dragon's parent, which shut down its regional carrier last week amid the group's struggles brought on by the coronavirus pandemic. Wong views Cathay's difficulties as a parallel to the greater challenges facing Hong Kong society. Even before the pandemic, the city's flagship airline had been reeling from last year's social unrest, which triggered calls for a boycott among mainland Chinese passengers angry over the involvement of some Cathay employees in the protests. "It is just like one country, two systems," Wong said, referring to the policy framework governing the former British colony since its handover to China. "When Chinese capital enters a free market, clashes are inevitable. So it is important that we preserve Hong Kong's own identity and local culture despite all the hardship." Dragonair, which launched in 1985, was rebranded as Cathay Dragon in 2016. It became a fully owned subsidiary of Cathay Pacific in 2006. © AP Cathay Pacific Airways said on Oct. 21 that it would discontinue Cathay Dragon as a separate unit with immediate effect as part of a restructuring plan that involves the elimination of 8,500 positions, or 24% of the company's workforce. Chairman Patrick Healy said then the decision was final. "It is safe to say that we won't, sadly, be seeing the return of the Cathay Dragon brand." Since then, employees and customers of the regional airline, which began as Dragonair in 1985 and was renamed Cathay Dragon four years ago, have been posting collections of boarding passes, miniature aircraft figure and travel photos on social media, creating their own obituaries for the Hong Kong-bred airline. "Thanks for being an important part of my life and memory," one woman wrote, alongside photos taken with her husband on their honeymoon. "You will always be missed." Jo Wong, who chairs a union for Dragonair staff, said last week that she was "extremely disappointed" with the decision to end Cathay Dragon's operations. "The 35 years of history and a valuable brand which represents Hong Kong had been put to an end in one single day... [The company] did not leave us a chance to say goodbye to [our colleagues]," she said. "This pain will last forever and no compensation can ease." The airline's 35-year history was indeed in line with the history that marked the return of Hong Kong sovereignty from the U.K. to China in 1997. British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher and Chinese Premier Zhao Ziyang exchange signed copies of the Hong Kong handover agreement in Beijing on Dec. 19, 1984. © AP Following the signing of the joint declaration on the handover between the two countries in December 1984, the concept of creating a new airline controlled by China and supported by local pro-Chinese businesspeople emerged at a time the local market was monopolized by Cathay Pacific. Textile magnate Chao Kuang-piu, who will turn 100 years old next month, led the airline's establishment in May 1985, winning financial backing from shipping tycoon Y.K. Pao, who had strong personal ties with top officials in Beijing, including paramount leader Deng Xiaoping. Other big names in Hong Kong business circles, such as Li Ka-shing and Henry Fok, joined in. According to Pao's daughter, Anna Pao Sohmen, people around her father were against the idea of backing the venture for various reasons, including Pao's friendly relationship with Swire Group, Cathay's controlling shareholder. Her father, who at one time had a seat on Swire's board, however, proceeded to take a 39% stake in Dragonair and became the new airline's chairman. "It puzzled all his friends and relatives to see father make a decision that completely went against his usual business sense," Sohmen wrote in a 2013 biography of Pao. A patriotic inclination to heed Beijing's call for a Hong Kong airline run by Chinese was the most likely reason, but "no one ever learned the answer," Sohmen wrote of her father, who died in 1991. The proposal to start a new Hong Kong airline to rival Cathay originated from China's leadership, according to Xu Jiatun, one-time head of the Xinhua News Agency in Hong Kong. © Reuters The proposal to start a new airline in Hong Kong to take on Cathay originated from China's leadership. Xu Jiatun, then the head of the state-run Xinhua News Agency in Hong Kong, Beijing's de facto representative office until the handover, wrote in the 1990s that the idea for Dragonair came from Zhao Ziyang, a notable reformist official. Zhao was the Chinese government's signatory for the handover treaty. The new airline was intended to "pull in managerial experience externally, and to provoke and improve civil aviation management in China," Xu said. While Dragonair began as a rival to Cathay, it came under the larger airline's wing in 1990. In a series of transactions set off by an announcement by Pao in November 1989 that he would retire and dispose of his Dragonair shares, Cathay and Swire jointly took over a 35% stake and CITIC Group, a state-owned Chinese investment holding company, also became a major shareholder. The arrival of Cathay and Swire in Dragonair's boardroom surprised Xu, who wrote that the purchase was agreed to by Yang Shangkun, then China's president, and approved by Premier Li Peng after Zhao's ouster following the Tiananmen crackdown. Pao was disillusioned. "The airline business is too dependent on politics," the tycoon said, according to his daughter. Six years later, Cathay sold some of its Dragonair shares to Air China Group, purportedly to ensure a smooth transition through the Hong Kong handover. Hong Kong fashion designer William Tang, who designed the uniforms for Dragonair's flight attendants in 2000. (Courtesy of William Tang) In 2006, Dragonair finally came under Cathay's full control as it paid 8.22 billion Hong Kong dollars ($1.06 billion) to buy out other shareholders and make the erstwhile rival a 100% subsidiary. The deal came as part of a larger restructuring of the relationship between Cathay and Air China. Aviation experts acknowledge the business logic behind ending Cathay Dragon, which was positioned between the full-fare premium service of Cathay Pacific and its low-cost affiliate Hong Kong Express, given the current economic environment. "One of the better descriptions of Dragon was meat in a sandwich -- caught in the middle," said Andrew Cowen, an industry veteran who runs airline consultancy Genki Partners in Hong Kong, but laments the reality of so many people being laid off. Fu Xiaowen, a professor at Hong Kong Polytechnic University who specializes in transport economics, said Cathay's decision was "unavoidable," but said it was "sad and disappointing" when considering the legacy and the jobs lost. For Hong Kong fashion designer William Tang, Cathay Dragon -- and Dragonair before that -- was the airline of choice for business trips to mainland China. He traveled on the airline as many as three times a week. "I used to tell everyone that I don't travel to cities where Dragonair doesn't operate a direct flight," Tang said. In 2000, Tang designed new uniforms for Dragonair's flight attendants. They lasted more than a decade until Cathay rebranded the regional airline. In the wake of last week's announcement, photos of the old uniforms flooded Tang's social media accounts. "The disappearance of such an outstanding homegrown airline is very saddening," he said. "It's the end of an era." https://asia.nikkei.com/Business/Transportation/Hong-Kong-bids-farewell-to-its-once-mighty-Dragon-airline Quote Link to post Share on other sites
TheJoker Posted November 17, 2020 Author Share Posted November 17, 2020 https://thepointsguy.com/news/cathay-pacific-drops-newark-seattle-and-washington-as-pandemic-hits-business/ Também DUB, LGW e MLE serão canceladas. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
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