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DOWNTURN BITES DEEPAirline announces operating loss, begins review of business model

August 2009, Issue 161

Service stars

It was an emotional moment for many when Cathay Pacific said goodbye to its last Classic freighter, B-HVZ.

The final flight took place on 27 July and the contribution made by these much-loved aircraft was celebrated at a farewell party at the HAECO hangar two days later.

• See pages 8-9

End of an era

Cairns ASM Amanda Jessop-Shaw took the top award at the 2009 Betsy Awards for her help in looking after a sick youngster.

This year’s awards saw a total of 14 staff from CX and KA honoured for extraordinary acts of kindness or consideration when dealing with passengers.

• See pages 4-5

It was a profit on paper, “but the simple truth is that we continued to lose money due to the deep and sustained downturn in our passen-ger and cargo business,” said Chair-man Chris Pratt, opening the press conference for the 2009 interim re-sults.

The Cathay Pacific Group an-nounced a profit of HK$812 million for the first six months of the year – compared to a HK$760 million loss in the same period last year – but the turnaround was mainly down to a HK$2.1 billion unrealised mark-to-market hedging gain.

“It is primarily a profit on paper only,” Chris said, explaining that with fuel hedging and tax taken out of the equation, the company made an operating loss of HK$765 million.

Turnover slid by a massive 27.1% with a collapse in both passenger and freight business – revenue for the former was down 23% while cargo earnings plummeted by al-most 40%.

This led to a HK$1.2 billion net outflow of cash from operating activities and a marked rise in the debt/equity ratio – from 0.69 to 0.81.

Reduced passenger and cargo revenues remain a concern for the second half, as does the recent hike in fuel prices. “The best we can say at the moment is that the worst may now be over,” said Chris.

Announcing that six passenger aircraft are being parked due to the sustained demand drop (see story

on page 2), Chris said the airline has also embarked on a review of all the options open to it.

“If the current changes are indeed structural rather than cyclical we may have to consider re-examining our entire business model,” he said.

Elaborating further on this in briefings to staff, Chief Executive Tony Tyler said a study has already begun to examine what the busi-ness looks like in various different revenue and market scenarios

“We are putting a full-time team

together to work out how we can be successful if any of those sce-narios comes to pass,” he said.

• More results – page 3• Message from the Chief

Executive – page 2

PAPER PROFIT: Chris Pratt (right) with Tony Tyler and Finance Director James Hughes-Hallett.

Produced by CX’s Corporate Communication Department

7/F North Tower, Cathay Pacific City, Lantau, HK

Publisher: Kerry McGlynnManaging Editor: Mark Tindall

Editor: Joyce WongEnquiries: 2747-5293GalaCXy ID: CCD#SCT

Email: ccd#sct@cathaypacific.com

Passengers carried 1,738,413 -18.1%

Passenger load factor 76.8% -4.5pt

ASKs (000) 8,674,725 -9.1%

Freight carried 123,860 -10.0%

Cargo load factor 71.3% 3.8pt

ATKs (000) 1,755,925 -11.9%* Figures for Jun 2009

Traffic/capacity (CX + KA)*

2

More aircraft parkedDownturn leads to six passenger aircraft taken out of serviceAs the prolonged economic down-turn continues to bite into the airline’s business, CX is responding by taking a number of passenger aircraft out of service.

The first of four Airbus A340-300s to be parked was withdrawn from the fleet last month with three more to follow in August, September and October respectively.

Two Boeing 747-400s will also be parked with the first going in Sep-tember and the second in January next year. Another 747 will leave the fleet at the end of the year when its lease expires.

All six of the parked aircraft will join the five Boeing Converted Freighters already in Victorville.

“Having implemented significant capacity cuts from May this year we

now have to ensure that we are op-erating the right number of aircraft to the right places,” says General Manager Planning Ray Fung.

“The downturn in business meant we were left with aircraft we don’t need. These six will be parked indefinitely unless the economic situation suddenly reverses and we need them back.”

All four A340s being parked are leased aircraft where the leases expire at the end of 2011. All are three-class with the old “Magellan” product.

With the parking of the four A340s, and the retrofitting of the remaining A340s, all CX long-haul aircraft will have the new cabins in place by November.

The two 747s chosen for parking

were both due to go in for expen-sive major scheduled maintenance. Their role will be taken up by two new 777-300ERs arriving in Octo-ber and December.

CX’s earlier intention – an-

Performance Index

61.4%

87.2%Within 15 minsIndustry standard

on-the-dot CX standard

On-time performance

Tony Tyler, Chief Executive

nounced last October as part of the first wave of measures to deal with the downturn – was to sell the five Boeing 777-200s in the fleet, but that plan had to be withdrawn when the deal fell through.

The announcement of frankly dismal results for the first half of the year prompts the inevitable question – what next?

We have already done a lot to ad-dress the current business slump – everything from cutting back ca-pacity to introducing the Special Leave Scheme – and we’ve just an-nounced that more aircraft are being parked. We’ve had to do these things to deal with the problems we face in the short term.

Now we need to take a long hard look at how to make our business succeed if things don’t improve on the revenue side. We simply cannot afford to see our cash reserves con-tinue to be depleted even as our debt levels rise, and if the current collapse in premium revenues and cargo turns out to be structural rather than cyclical we may need a fundamental change in the way we do things.

Our current business model has served us well, but that model might not be sustainable if we have to face up to a “new normal” in our busi-ness. That’s why we have begun an in-depth study of what our business would look like in various different revenue and market scenarios. This review will look at things on the cost side – in line with the strategic cost management initiative already un-derway – but will also examine how to improve revenues and assess what configurations we may need to run our business successfully in the fu-ture.

It makes very good management sense to go through this kind of mod-eling exercise. Our Director Informa-tion Management Ed Nicol will lead the study and have a full-time team to pull the project together. And, of course, we’ll be calling on the exper-tise available in various departments.

In the meantime we have to keep focused on performing as well as we can for the rest of the year. A lot now depends on if there is any pickup in the world economy, how our pas-senger and cargo markets respond to that pickup, and what happens to other variables such as fuel prices.

From a team point of view, the best thing we can do is keep doing our jobs to the best of our abilities. You’ve all been doing a great job in very try-ing circumstances and we need to keep that team spirit alive to help us weather this nasty storm.

Message from the

Chief Executive

A delegation from the Liaison Office of the Central People’s Government in the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region, led by Director Peng Qing-Hua, visited Cathay City on 22 July.

The delegation was met by Chief Executive Tony Tyler and Director Corporate Affairs Quince Chong who escorted the group throughout the tour. They visited the Flight Training Centre for a simulator ride, toured the state-of-the-art Integrated Operations Centre (pictured above) and finished off with a visit to Cathay Pacific Catering Services.

Mr Peng praised Cathay Pacific’s success in developing Hong Kong’s aviation industry as well as the airline’s contribution towards the long-term aviation co-operation between Hong Kong and the Mainland. He also recognised CX’s corporate social responsibility efforts in Hong Kong.

CX commits to being part of biofuel solutionAs climate change becomes an ever-bigger issue, the airline industry is working hard to find new ways to limit its environ-mental impact.

One area where a lot of inter-est is being focused is the de-velopment of commercial bio-fuels for aviation – and Cathay Pacific highlighted its commit-ment to being part of the solu-tion last month by joining the Sustainable Aviation Fuel Users Group.

Launched in autumn 2008, the Users Group is bringing to-gether airlines, manufacturers and environmental organisa-tions to conduct research proj-ects and develop practices and principles for the the use of sustainable biofuels.

Users Group members have pledged to work together un-der the Roundtable for Sustain-able Biofuels (RSB) process, the global de facto standard for sustainable biofuels.

“This is a very important

Cathay City tour for liaison director

step for us to take,” says Head of Environmental Affairs Mark Watson.

“CX has made clear its inten-tion to reduce its environmen-tal impact and joining the Us-ers Group dovetails with our own environmental efforts and those of the aviation industry as a whole.”

The Users Group’s focus is on making available renewable fuel sources that can reduce greenhouse gas emissions and at the same time lessen com-mercial aviation’s dependence on fossil fuels.

“RSB and Users Group mem-bers agree that working togeth-er across sectors and interests is the best approach to ensur-ing biofuels are developed in a sustainable manner,” says Mark.

All group members must agree to sustainability criteria with a number of stipulations, including that plant sources for jet fuel should not compete with plants grown for food.

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GROUNDED: Two Boeing 747-400s are due to be parked in September and next January, joining four A340s at Victorville in California.

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3

Gloomy results – and still no uptick in sight Turnover falls 27%, cash continues to drain out of businessThe world’s airline industry contin-ues to operate under a dark cloud and on 5 August Cathay Pacific joined a host of other leading carri-ers in posting disappointing results.

While the airline actually declared a profit of HK$812 million for the first six months of the year, most of this was attributable to a HK$2 bil-lion unrealised mark-to-market fuel hedging gain.

The underlying story – echoed in the results posted by other major carriers such as Singapore Airlines, British Airways, Lufthansa, Japan Air-lines and Air France/KLM – was the big decline in earnings from the core business activities of carrying pas-sengers and cargo.

After taking fuel hedging and tax out of the equation, CX actually made an operating loss of HK$765 in its 2009 interims and saw a huge slide in earnings.

“Our turnover fell by 27.1% in the first six months – an astonishing re-duction that would cause a problem in any business,” Chief Operating Of-ficer John Slosar told staff at one of a series of post-results briefings.

“The results underline the fact that we are still not making money – a polite way of saying we are losing money,” said Chief Executive Tony Ty-ler.

“We can’t let it continue this way – we must return to profits, get cash flowing in not out, and either build up equity by not spending that cash or paying dividends, or repay debt, or both,” Tony told staff.

On the cost side there were reduc-tions in staff expenses – with more to come in the second half of the year when the full impact of the Special Leave Scheme kicks in – and inflight service, passenger and maintenance spending all fell.

There were also major savings in fuel, though one of the fears now is that with fuel prices on the up again

– and demand remaining stubbornly suppressed – the return to profitabil-ity could be a long-haul journey.

“The general revenue situation is still poor,” John told staff. “This is a big challenge because we need to be able to operate profitably to pay our debts.”

With the current situation offering more of the same, and the industry in “the worst shape I have seen dur-ing my 30 years in aviation”, Tony said the team is going to have to work together like never before to turn things around.

“We have 39 aircraft on order be-tween now and 2013 – aircraft that we need to keep our fleet modern, efficient and environmentally sound, and to enable us to be competitive when the upturn does come,” he said. “But they are expensive. When they arrive, they have to be operationally effective – and profitable. We can’t afford for them to become a further

drain on the bottom line.”With fears that the current slump

in premium travel and cargo may turn out to be structural rather than cyclical, the airline has begun to take a “long hard look” at how to make the business succeed if things don’t improve on the revenue side.

Director Information Manage-ment Ed Nicol has been charged with leading a modelling project that will analyse the resilience of CX’s current business model and look at different demand scenarios and how the air-

What the analysts say …“Front-end demand has collapsed due mainly to changes in corporate travel policies. The outlook remains difficult and we project deepening losses.”

Andrew Au, Cazenove Asia

“Only a recovery in demand will help them make a profit in the second half. It’s unlikely the carrier can save that much in fuel costs again as oil prices have already gone up a lot.”

Allen Wong, Quam Ltd

“Fuel hedging remains an unpredict-able swing factor in terms of 2009 earnings and the higher-than-expect-ed gain represents an upside risk to our full-year estimate …. We predict a net income of HK$273.7 million for the year.

Hino Lam, Goldman Sachs

“The results were pretty much in line with our expectations, but if there is no improvement or sustained recovery

in the second half, the company may need to consider raising funds in the market.”

Jim Wong, Nomura Securities

“We think the airline industry could be close to a cyclical bottom [due to] a sta-bilisation in cargo demand, recovering business confidence and expectations the global economy will begin to re-cover in the second half.”

Sam Lee, Credit Suisse

Were the interim results what you were expecting?

It was about what I expected. But I was surprised because I thought the performance was getting better when it’s actually getting worse.

Matilda Chan, ENG

I expected to see either a small loss or small profit, so it was in line with my expectations. Gordon Ramsay,

FOP

I thought we would make a loss, so a profit was more than I expected.

Tony Schmidt, FOP

It was what I expected but I was surprised to see that the second quarter was worse than the first quarter.

Monna Tsui, ENG

At a time like this, I am surprised to see we made a profit.

Kate Chiu, ISD

At first I was surprised to see we made a profit but I realise it’s just a paper gain and we are not really making money.

KK Oh, ENG

• Group records interim profit of HK$812 million • This compares to a HK$760 million loss in the first half of 2008 • Increase primarily a result of a HK$2.1 billion unrealised mark-to-market

fuel hedging gain • Group made operating loss of HK$765 million • Turnover fell by 27.1% to HK$30,921 million • Group passenger revenue fell 22.9% to HK$21,809 million • Cargo revenue dropped by 39.5% to HK$7,264 million

line would need to respond in terms of revenue streams, aircraft configu-rations and costs.

Ed is currently assembling a full-time team that will pull the project together with the help of major de-partments.

“While we will not look at chang-ing our core values as a premium carrier, we need to see what differ-ent models look like and make sure we have the right kind of airline for the business going forward,” he says.

2009 interim results highlights

NUMBERS GAME: John Slosar takes staff through complex interim results figures at Cathay City briefings.

EXPERT INSIGHT: Ian Shiu and James Hughes-Hallett brief analysts on the results.

4

Service stars shine at 2009 BetsysCeremony spotlights 10 heart-warming stories of service way beyond the call of duty

traordinary acts of kindness.There was also special recogni-

tion for the Bangkok team in ap-preciation of their great efforts in assisting stranded passengers when Suvarnabhumi International Airport suffered an eight-day shutdown late last year.

Chief Executive Tony Tyler kicked off the presentation ceremony by reiterating the importance of

achieving service excellence within the airlines.

He congratulated the Betsy win-ners and saluted them for offering extra care and special attention when it was most needed. “Your acts of kindness and dedication are in in-spiration to us all,” he said.

Airport Services Manager Cairns Amanda Jessop-Shaw was the top award winner this year for her ef-forts in keeping a sick young pas-senger company in a hotel until her mother arrived.

Sharing her story with emcees

Lucy Tsui (CX) and Chris Yuen (KA), Amanda said she didn’t really think too much about it at that time. “As an ASM it’s my job to take good care of our passengers,” she said.

Senior Captain Evan Summerfield was the second pilot from FOP to win a Betsy since the programme started in 2005. He was instrumental in restoring order and calm amongst passengers after his flight to Sap-poro was diverted to Tokyo due to severe weather conditions.

Evan took charge at Narita even though he was travelling as a pas-

BEYOND THE CALL OF DUTYAssistant Manager Customer Services Tommy Li, KA BJS

Tommy went all out to help a passenger get back her PDA which she had left in a taxi. He helped to locate the taxi driver and even drove his own car out to retrieve it when the taxi was stuck in a queue at the airport.

senger and says the incident “was certainly the highlight in my 14 years with CX”.

Other CX winners came from ISD, HKIA, Manila, Singapore and Delhi, while KA had three winners from Inflight Services, Beijing and Shang-hai – see a summary of the stories below.

Loud cheers accompanied each winner as they climbed onto the stage to receive their gold pin and certificate of achievement from Tony and other directors.

The 2009 winning stories were

This year’s Betsy Awards highlight-ed that during good times and bad, CX staff can step up to the mark and offer a truly special service experi-ence.

The 2009 awards were presented at a lunchtime ceremony at Cathay City on 27 July, with directors joined by a crowd of staff and media guests

to salute 14 front-line staff for ex-

‘CAPTAIN CATHAY’ TAKES CONTROLSenior Captain Evan Summerfield, FOP

When CX580 was diverted to Tokyo due to severe weather conditions in Sapporo, Captain Summerfield, who was travelling on the flight as a passenger, stood up and took charge when things got chaotic at Narita airport. He helped to organise refreshments and

overnight accommodation for the affected passengers and also ensured they were

constantly updated on the latest flight status.

A THOUGHTFUL GESTUREFlight Attendant Iris Tsang, KA ISD

When Iris learnt that a passenger was a first-time visitor to Shanghai, she took time out during the flight to make a small booklet containing useful Chinese phrases, maps, useful tips and places. Her kind action helped make his stay in Shanghai a very easy and rewarding one.

KEEPING A PROMISECustomer Services Supervisor Maggie Ma, KA SHA

Due to the heightened security levels during the Beijing Olympics, Maggie looked after two magnetic UFO toys which a passenger had bought. She kept her promise and sent the items back to him in Los Angeles after security restrictions were lifted.

THE LITTLE THINGS COUNTAirport Services Supervisor Janet Jothi, SIN

Janet was able to recognise a passenger despite his three-year absence from Singapore. He was pleasantly surprised when she called to ask if he would still like to have his special meal when he forgot to put in a request and update his profile through a rushed booking.

COMPASSION AND GREAT TEAMWORKAirport Services Manager Ashok Batra, DELManager on Duty Monica Badhwar, DELManager on Duty Sanjay Yadav, DEL

A flight was diverted to Delhi after a passenger had given birth on board. Ashok, Monica and Sanjay quickly helped to turn round the flight to minimise inconvenience to other passengers and, at the same time, ensured the mother and her new child were well looked afterwards on the ground.

5

Service stars shine at 2009 BetsysCeremony spotlights 10 heart-warming stories of service way beyond the call of duty Drive to boost

PRD awarenessStaff will be learning more about the Pearl River Delta (PRD) area north of Hong Kong over the next few months as an internal information campaign gets underway on 17 August .

Activities for the month-long programme include an exhibition at Cathay City and Dragonair House from 17-28 August and 31 August to 11 September respectively, and stories in IntraCX and Dragonet.

Other activities include an online quiz, staff forums, staff tours and special travel offers.

“The PRD is a fast-growing market and developing the region as part of our home market is important,” says Passenger Sales Manager PRD Linda Tse.

“We’d like staff to understand that our home market is bigger than just Hong Kong and there are opportunities as yet untapped in the overall greater PRD area – Hong Kong, Macau and the PRD.”

Linda says understanding developments in the PRD, including the growing infrastructure and connectivity, will boost the CX Group’s market opportunities.

Chitty Cheung takes over from James Tong as General Manager Sales PRD & HK in mid-August and also takes up his role as head of the PRD core team.

She says it’s important for staff to learn more about the PRD as there are growing commercial opportunities in the region for both airlines.

“For the outports it’s simply commercial,” she says. “They are selling to Hong Kong but Hong Kong is a finite market and you need to enlarge your market size. The PRD is a booming region for both inbound and outbound.

“The outport markets are at different stages of maturity. Taiwan to the PRD is a very mature market and the North American market already has quite a lot of business to the PRD. For these outports, they have immediately seen the benefits as their market size has been enlarged,” Chitty says.

“For those outports which are still at the early stages, there are exciting opportunities in store for them.”

Passenger self-service grows with more terminalsAn additional 33 Common Use Self-Service (CUSS) terminals are now available at Hong Kong International Airport.

Sixteen terminals were installed in the check-in area of Aisle C on 22 July, an extra 10 in Area C and seven more in Aisle B were added on 6 August.

To cope with the extra numbers of passengers doing self check-in via the CUSS machines, the Self Check-in Bag drop counters have been extended in both Aisle B and C.

More HKIA staff will also be assigned as CUSS ambassadors to greet and assist passengers through the self check-in

process. They will help direct

passengers with baggage towards the Self Check-in Bag Drop counters and show non-eligible passengers where they can do conventional check-in.

Amanda Jessop-Shaw was certainly overwhelmed by all the

attention she received at the Betsy Awards. “She’s had more photos taken today

than on our wedding day,” joked her husband, Richard, who accompanied her to Hong Kong.

Recalling the incident that won her the top award in 2009, Amanda said there was no way she

could leave a sick young passenger alone when she arrived in Cairns.

“I wanted to give her the appropriate care and attention she needed,” says Amanda who,

as a mother herself, knew the 10-year old girl would be frightened at being sick and alone in a strange place.

Without hesitation, Amanda took the girl to hospital where she was diagnosed with damaged eardrums. The ASM paid the consultation fees and took the child to the hotel to rest.

As they waited through Friday and Saturday night for the child’s mother to arrive,

Amanda had to keep in touch with her own daughter while making the little girl feel as comfortable as possible. When the child’s fever subsided, Amanda took her out for a movie and dinner.

Coincidentally, Amanda’s birthday fell on that weekend and she was touched to get a card from her young charge. “I thought it was really sweet of her,” she smiled.

first shortlisted from thousands of compliment letters received across the CX and KA networks last year. A panel of judges made up of senior managers graded each story based on the level of going beyond the call of duty, value to passengers, level of inspiration to staff and level of pro-moting services.

As in previous years, each win-ner will be offered the chance to go on a reward trip such as an aircraft delivery or join-ing the UNICEF Change for Good field trip.

The queen o

f hea

rts

A COMFORTING PRESENCESupervisor Holly Fung, APT

A passenger who felt unwell on arrival praised Holly for showing her the utmost care and concern. Despite being ready to leave work for the day, Holly accompanied the passenger to the hospital when the airport doctor wasn’t available and ensured she got back to the hotel safely.

QUICK THINKINGAirport Services Supervisor Kharen de Castro, MNLAirport Services Officer Doddie Baciles, MNL

A passenger thought he would miss his flight to the US as he had left his passport with the required visa at home. Quick thinking by Kharen and Doddie not only helped put the passenger at ease but also ensured that he made his flight to the States for a very important business meeting.

BIG HEARTSInflight Services Manger Winter Yau, ISDFlight Purser Ratchada Thaidhanaiswan, ISD

Winter and Rachada (not pictured) demonstrated incredible generosity and went all out to help a passenger who fell sick after landing in Hong Kong. They accompanied her to the airport doctor and also contacted her sister in Bangkok.

When the passenger was referred to the hospital for further treatment, they gave her money for the journey and also lent her one of their handphones so she could speak to her sister.

SPECIAL MENTIONCX Bangkok Airport Team

Bangkok Suvarnabhumi International Airport was closed from 25 November to 5 December

2008 when hundreds of members of the People’s Alliance for Democracy occupied the approach road. Despite working under very stressful conditions, and with very limited facilities at Utapao Airport, where stranded passengers went to leave the country, the CX

Bangkok Team was extremely professional and demonstrated great efficiency and excellent service to all passengers.

How do you feel about the last ‘Classic leaving?

Sorry to know they are leaving the fleet, but we are getting better planes to replace them.

Judy Yan, AHQ

It is good – time to move onto better planes which are an improvement and more convenient to use.

Ken Mak, CGO

Mixed emotions – a bit sad because I worked for a long time with them, but the younger guys are happy to see them go because they tend to be more labour intensive.

Steve Child, ENG

The first aircraft engineering licence I had was for a 747-200, so I am sorry to see it go. But they are harder to service.

John Karas, ENG

I grew up with Classics so it’s sad to see them go. But it’s also good to switch over to aircraft that use up much less fuel.

Alex Chan, FOP

I never flew them, but they are a Classic at CX so a little bit sad to see them go.

Stacy Walker, FOP

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Star letter

Letters to the Editor

Last month we asked you “Do you think the Betsy Awards help to motivate frontline staff to provide superior service? “ You answered:

Check out the CX World website and Daily News on IntraCX for next month’s poll question.

Yes, company recognition pro-grammes such as the Betsys help motivate frontline staff

The Betsy Awards are nice, but more rewards would help

No, the rewards offered do not provide enough of a motivation

%0 10 20 30 40

The online poll

compile the responses from that group of people in that depart-ment.

Second, we need to make sure only “legitimate” respondents’ data is collected, and we don’t get input from people outside CX, or people from one area of the company giving feedback about a completely different area.

At no point does anyone from CX get to see any individual re-sponses – and the survey com-pany will not produce a report for any group smaller than six people, to further protect confidentiality.

Animals flying highAs some CX passengers travel with their pets, or use CX Cargo to ship live animals, why not create a monthly or quarterly competition in CX World of the cutest pets car-ried?

It would help promote the CX Live Animal Lift product, and as-sure the pet owner their animal is being handled with the utmost professionalism.

Andrew PoonYTO

Jack Lo, Cargo Product & Mar-keting Manager, replies: When customers ship their pets, in many cases the owners use cargo agents or pet shops as representatives.

Due to privacy issues, our staff are not supposed to take photos of the pets, and they would have to ask the cargo agents to contact the owner for permission to take photos and then feature them in CX World.

Logistically this would be com-plicated for both the staff mem-ber and the cargo agent.

Pets should also remain calm before boarding and taking them

out for photo taking would get them excited.

Musical chairs Why does the pre-seating in Economy Class switch to uncon-firmed when there is an aircraft change, but the seating configu-ration remains the same?

For instance, when there is an aircraft change from 34D to 34B the seating is unconfirmed, but the seat numbers and configu-ration are the same regardless of whether it’s the new or old prod-uct.

If the flight is under airport control we cannot rebook the seat for the passenger.

Phillip AlvesAKL

Margaret Shek, Assistant Man-ager R&T Operations, replies: On the seat map which is built into the reservation system, most of the seats carry different features. When there is an equip-ment change, the system will au-tomatically arrange for the same seat features for the affected pas-sengers.

Anonymity assuredI’ve just completed the Organi-sation Alignment Survey and re-ally have to wonder why we were required to fill in our email, port, department and job level in or-der to complete an “anonymous” survey.

I’m not sure how the require-ment to provide this information may impact the level of “honest” feedback, but it would be inter-esting to see the results of a truly anonymous survey as a compari-son.

Name withheld

Graham Barkus, Manager Or-ganisational Development & Learning, replies: The detailed information has two purposes: first, the survey company needs to produce reports for specific areas of the company – so their database management system needs to know which responses to compile for which reports.

If we want to know how Level A people in Department ABC feel about things, we need to be able

Send us your feedbackWe welcome feedback from anyone in the CX network on any issue affecting the airline or the industry. Please email your letters to CCD#SCT. Not all letters will be published but those that are will be edited for length and to comply with the CX World style.

The sender of the star letter each month will win 3,000 Asia Miles. The Feedback page is sponsored by Asia’s leading travel reward programme.

In the example you have men-tioned, while the configuration for both 34B and 34D look very much the same some of the seat features are different.

For example, seat 34D is a mid-dle-aisle seat in the first row of the second section of Economy Class on both aircraft but the seat features are different.

When this happens, the pas-senger will not be protected to the same seat number.

New-look Discovery? I’ve noticed The Club magazine for Marco Polo Club members has a new design. It looks fantastic with great artwork throughout.

Can we look at redesigning the Discovery magazine too?

It’s looking a bit tired and could do with a facelift. It would be nice to greet passengers with some fresh inflight entertainment.

David PaiceLON

Clement Au – Manager, Inflight Communication & Entertain-ment, replies: Our team will do its best to keep up the high stan-dard and quality of Cathay Pacific inflight publications.

However, Discovery magazine was last revamped in January 2008 and the existing design will be kept for the moment to main-tain its product and brand identi-fication with passengers.

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KA PeoPle

n New arrangements for Dhaka and Kathmandu servicesFrom 1 October, the night flight to Kathmandu from Hong Kong and the return flight from Kathmandu will both operate via Dhaka.

The new arrangement will mean frequency on the Hong Kong and Kathmandu route will increase to five times a week from the existing thrice-weekly service.

The flights will also be operated using an A330 aircraft that offers greater capacity for both passengers and cargo.

KA BRIeFS

Times are changing for Jenny

Over Jenny He’s 19 years working in Drag-onair’s Shanghai office she has witnessed a multitude of changes in both the airline and the city.

Newly appointed in July as Manager – Mar-keting & Sales (Eastern China), Jenny joined Dragonair in July 1990 after she was inter-viewed for a position as Customer Services Officer for CX.

“The day I started work, the whole team had been seconded to KA. But as I was not clear about airlines or travel at the time, it was all the same to me,” she laughs.

Jenny says that back then the small team multi-tasked, often working at the town office throughout the day and then going out to the airport in the evening.

“The team has grown from 12 members to over 200, as we increased from five flights a week to over 100 flights now,” she says.

“The job scope has also changed. Back then we concentrated primarily on operations. Now we have separate teams for cargo, sales, ticketing and operations.

“But the team has stayed very young, which I think is a good thing, and they are now more professional and more international in out-look,” she says.

But the most exciting thing is the changes Jenny has seen happening in Shanghai over the years.

“I am amazed at how fast the city is develop-ing,” Jenny says. “Every year the market grows and changes happen very quickly.”

Jenny says she is looking forward to explor-ing more sales opportunities in her new posi-tion.

“The Eastern China market is growing very quickly and is one of KA’s most important mar-kets,” she says.

“The local people are becoming more ma-ture travellers and there are opportunities to sell different over-seas markets.

“It used to be that tickets to Hong Kong and Taiwan were the most popu-lar, but increasingly we are seeing more business for Australia, Europe and North America,” Jenny adds.

James getting ready for the KA challenge

“Along the way the most important thing I have learned is the importance of team spirit,” he says. “The airline business is complicated and no individual or team can handle every-thing. We need a lot of coordination and team-work among different parties to get the job done.”

During this challenging time, James says he wants to build on the high quality service and operational excellence the KA team is al-ready known for.

“A brand positioning review is also impor-tant because KA has undergone a few chang-es since it started in 1985 with a Boeing 737.

Taking over as the head of Dragonair dur-ing the current business situation would faze anyone, but James Tong, who takes up the post of CEO on 17 August, is looking forward to the challenges that lie ahead.

James joined Cathay Pacific in 1987 and has held a number of managerial positions within the commercial and operational departments in Hong Kong, Australia and Germany.

He also worked for Dragonair as Regional Manager Northern China in Beijing from 1994 to 1996, and was also General Manager Commercial for Air Hong Kong from 2002 to 2004.

It has also been three years since the integra-tion and operationally it’s been very smooth,” he says.

“At the same time the external environment has changed a lot and the aviation industry is having a difficult time. I think it’s time to have a full review of the brand and market positioning, and assess whether we need to develop any new strategies in this changing, new environment,” James adds.

James says the KA network, with its strong presence in China along with its access to sister airline’s Cathay Pacific’s network, has made Dragonair the envy of other airlines.

“The current network has been serving us very well but there are further opportunities and we will be looking to develop our pres-ence in the Pearl River Delta. The launch of the Guangzhou flights in September will be key to that,” he says.

Developing the winning team at KA will be another focus for James.

“One key thing that makes the difference in aviation is the people so we need to keep de-veloping in that area. I’ll be looking at provid-ing more development opportunities, giving them more challenges and working on ways the teams can continue their operational ex-cellence,” he says.

“I think I’m a people person so the immedi-ate task when I arrive will be to get to know the team,” he smiles.

“ I am eager to meet everyone, and not just in Hong Kong. I am also very keen to visit all the outports over the next few months.”

Over 40 staff from around China gathered in Nanjing for the Fourth National Congress on 9-10 July.

All the Regional/Port Managers as well as the China Central Team managers were present to discuss market developments, review results of the first half of 2009 and to refocus direction for the rest of the year.

The congress theme, suggested by General Manager China Patrick Yeung (right), was “Remixing.”

He says: “When elements of an original song are remixed, it produces a new song. Similarly, we have to change our thinking as the market changes. The elements of doing business don’t change, but the

China teams mix it up in Nanjingcombinations make a difference.”

The two-day session included a business update from Patrick, a “State of the Nation” address from Director Sales & Marketing James Barrington, and an update on the customer-facing side from Director Service Delivery Ivan Chu.

The congress also featured a best-practice sharing session where several ports shared successful stories in areas ranging from sales to cost control.

The delegates also took part in group discussions to identify innovative sales and marketing strat-egies to combat the reduction in travel resulting from the swine flu outbreak.

The end of an eraIt was a poignant moment at the HAECO hangar on 29 July when the door closed on an important part of Cathay Pacific’s past.

The occasion was the farewell party for B-HVZ, the last of the Boeing 747-200/300 Classics to leave the fleet, and a crowd of staff with a special interest in the aircraft –from Flight Operations, Engineering, Cargo and HAECO – looked on as the freighter’s nose door closed slowly for the last time.

The Classics helped CX become a truly international passenger and cargo carrier. The first passenger variant arrived in 1979 and three years later it was Cargo’s turn when B-HVY arrived from British Airways to begin building the airline’s freight business.

HVZ arrived in 1987 – bought new from Boeing – and the official handover took place in Las Vegas. Senior Training Captain Bob Davy was on the delivery flight, as First Officer, and recalls that some passenger seats were bolted to the main cargo deck floor to take dignitaries from Seattle to Nevada. “Quite a sight in such a large, empty space,” he smiles.

On the flight back to Hong Kong the only freight in the hold was a spare Rolls-Royce engine and an E-type Jaguar belonging to a flight engineer, but the freighter was rarely empty after that. Like all the other Classics, HVZ worked hard for the airline and over almost 22 years it flew 22,141 cycles over 96,604 hours and covered an estimated 42.5 million miles.

But the writing was always on the wall for the old workhorses. As newer, more efficient freighters came into the fleet, financial and environmental concerns led the airline to introduce a retirement programme for the old aircraft in 2008. First to leave was HVY and over the next 16 months a total of 11 of the old freighters were withdrawn from service, with

8

HVZ the last to go.The last commercial flight for the last

Classic was a routine hop to Pudong and back on 27 July. At the controls were Flying Training Manager 747F Captain Craig Baynes, First Officer Marc Torrent and Flight Engineer Peter Johnson. It was a particularly poignant moment for Peter and the other FEs (see below) and their contribution was recognised by Chief Executive Tony Tyler at the farewell party.

“It is sad to see the FEs go but unfortunately progress means we no longer need their service,” said Tony. “They have served the company loyally and well and we offer our deep and sincere thanks for the great job they’ve done.”

Echoing Tony’s comments, General Manager Flying Henry Craig said the FEs will be missed. “I have many memories of being called ‘son’ and kept in my place,” he said. “I will miss that I can no longer turn round and ask what to do next!”

Engineering Director Chris Gibbs admitted that engineers had something of a “love/hate relationship” with the aircraft, which became increasingly unreliable as they aged, but paid tribute to the hard work of teams in Hong Kong, line stations, HAECO and TAECO who helped keep them in the air.

Chief Pilot (747) Geoff Denham says that though the fleet has operated its last commercial flight there are still three aircraft in Hong Kong awaiting a decision on their future.

“We’ll retain a skeleton Fleet Office – basically Chief Flight Engineer Mike Conduit and myself to crew the delivery flights with our former FTM, Craig Baynes,” says Geoff.

“We expect to close the office by the end of August.”

Fond farewell for ‘sideways fliers’Peter Johnson’s 15-year career with CX came to end when B-HVZ left the fleet – as did the careers of all remaining flight engineers in the airline.

The link with old-school, pre-fly-by-wire aviation was severed for good when the last Classic left but there was one final surprise in store for Peter – being rostered to operate HVZ’s last commercial flight.

“I was originally down for the second-to-last flight so this was a big thrill,” he says.

“It was strange to sign in for the last time but the flight itself was very routine – I just did the job in the usual way.”

Things got more emotional back on the ground and Peter later joined all the other FEs in uniform for a souvenir picture in front of Niki at Cathay City (left). A couple of days later they were

all back together again for the HAECO farewell party.

Most of the FEs – “a dying breed” – are heading into retirement and Peter (below) now plans to spend his time in Spain – though he will work part-time as a flying instructor. All will look back fondly on their days at CX, “flying sideways” to monitor every detail of the flight.

Departure of last Classic closes another chapter in Cathay Pacific’s rich history

CLASSIC FINISH: (Opposite page) Shots from the farewell party given for HVZ at the HAECO hangar, just before the nose door closed for the last time. (This page) The last flight for the last Classic was a routine hop to Pudong and back. The flight was crewed by (above, from left) Marc Torrent, Peter Johnson and Craig Baynes, who relished the opportunity to be part of Cathay Pacific history.

The end of an era

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Online shopping option scores with membersRapid growth in number of merchants available at Asia Miles iShopThe Asia Miles iShop has been growing in leaps and bounds since it launched in May with 100 merchants.

The number of merchants has since grown to more than 1,000 and now include the Apple Store and Sony Style in the UK, iTunes in the US and Amazon in China.

Manager Programme & Partner-ship Development Christopher Chang, says: “iShop was being considered as early as February af-ter we got the idea from a vendor who was doing electronic shop-ping for other airlines. We got ex-cited about doing the same thing at Asia Miles.”

Christopher says the number of transactions has been steadily increasing as the number of mer-chants has grown.

“The promotion to members has been minimal – we put it in the Asia Miles e-summary and did an MSN alert for members – but

we wanted to finetune iShop first and make sure it was working smoothly,” he says.

More targeted promotions will be conducted in August.

Christopher says the merchants chosen have helped the team gain an insight into the different mar-kets and what people were inter-ested in.

“We launched with merchants from five markets – Japan, US, UK, Australia and China – to get an idea what buyers are looking for,” he says.

“For instance, we have already received interest from Hong Kong members in expanding the j-shop-ping site.

“This site is based in China but sells Japanese apparel and prod-ucts and has proved quite popu-lar,” says Christopher.

Future plans include expanding the merchants to more markets including Hong Kong, Southeast

n Fuel surcharges adjustedCX has raised its passenger fuel surcharges for the two-month period starting 1 August.

The Hong Kong Civil Aviation Department gave approval for fuel surcharges to be increased to HK$69 for short-haul flights and HK$318 for long-haul flights – a rise of approximately 33 per cent over the previous levels.

n Book flies off shelvesThe book written by Hong Kong International Airport staff to highlight the highs and lows of working at the airport has turned into a big seller.

The first edition sold out in just 20 days and a further 2,000 copies were printed in time for the recent Hong Kong Book Fair.

The book, written in Chinese, is on sale at the CXcitement Shop and leading Hong Kong bookshops.

Briefs

Over the past year, there were

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applications to be cabin crew in Hong Kong

Asia, Korea and Taiwan. “Language capabilities will

also be expanded to traditional Chinese and Japanese,” Christo-pher says.

Asia Miles iShop can be found at www.asiamiles.com under Earn Miles>iShop.

SHOP TILL YOU DROP: The number of merchants featured on iShop is steadily growing.

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Middle East business potential highlighted as second Saudi city comes onlineStaff are already hard at work preparing for the launch of CX’s latest passenger destination – Jed-dah in Saudi Arabia.

Flights begin to the kingdom’s second-biggest city, located in the west of the country on the coast of the Red Sea, on 25 October.

The new four-times-weekly service marks the first destination launch since Chennai in June 2008.

The top priority is to set up the airport office, and work is now in progress to appoint a ground-handling agent at Jeddah airport.

Shawqu Akbari, Airport Services Manager in Bahrain, is helping with the selection process.

Kothandant Mohandas, Cargo Manager Bah-rain, Saudi Arabia & Offline Middle East, is help-ing find a cargo handling agent while the reser-vations and ticketing function will be handled by AISC, CX’s existing general sales agent in Saudi Arabia.

The launch of Jeddah will tap into a rich busi-ness segment as well as leisure traffic and a per-

centage of the huge number of Muslims who fly to visit Mecca.

“The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia certainly has a lot of business potential,” says Country Manager Bahrain & Saudi Arabia Daniel Cheung.

“The visit of China’s President Hu Jintao to Sau-di Arabia helped to boost ties, and a lot of indus-trial projects are underway which will increase the demand for workers and businesspeople travelling between the two countries.”

An extensive sales and marketing campaign is currently being planned, with TV, radio and print ads being backed up by promotional flyers and special packages to promote the new flight.

“This will only be to promote sales between Jeddah and Hong Kong and beyond because, at this stage, we don’t have traffic rights between Dubai and Jeddah,” says Daniel.

The Jeddah launch follows the strengthening of services to the Saudi Arabian capital, Riyadh, with an increase from five-times-weekly to daily from 1 August.

n New CRMS launched A new web-based Customer Relations Management System (CRMS) was launched on 20 July to help customer relations rep-resentatives around the network provide speedy feedback.

The new CRMS replaces the legacy mainframe system and organises complaints and com-pliments in a way that provides more concise and accurate data for reporting and analysing customer feedback.

The system will in future capture customer feedback from all customer touch points, mak-ing it easier to identify service shortfalls and enable teams to be more proactive in service recovery.

n HAECO profit falls 27% HAECO announced a profit attributable to shareholders of HK$430 million for the first half of 2009 – down 27% on the same period in 2008.

The result is a reflection of more airlines cutting capacity and expenditure in response to falling demand.

HAECO Chairman Chris Pratt said the maintenance firm’s busi-ness activity in the second half of 2009 is expected to be substan-tially weaker than in the first six months as airlines continue to reduce services and expenditure.

CX has a 27.5% stake in HAECO.

n Timetable gets smartThe oneworld timetable – featuring schedules for all the alliance’s member airlines – can now be accessed via Blackberrys and other smart phones.

Users can open their web browser to http://m.timetable.oneworld.com and check out schedules offered by all 10 of the alliance’s carriers, all their affiliates and flights operated with their prefix under code-sharing arrangements with other airlines.

n CorrectionServair, named Most Improved Caterer in the ISD catering awards (July CX World) is based in Paris (CDG) and not Jakarta (CGK) as printed.

Briefs

With the launch of Jeddah, CX will have

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online passenger destinations

October launch for Jeddah flights

READY TO GO: Daniel Cheung (third from left) briefed journalists on the Jeddah launch at a Bahrain luncheon. The four-times-weekly service to Saudi Arabia’s second city begins on 25 October.

Musical day out planned with Asia’s young musicians

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And the name of the butler is ...

Disadvantaged children will be given a chance to enjoy the music of the Asian Youth Orchestra (AYO) thanks to Cathay Pacific.

CX is the official carrier for the AYO which is made up of 104 musicians from 10 countries.

On 12 August, 180 schoolchildren from Tung Chung will participate in the AYO Music Fun Fest Concert which allows the children and their families to see, touch and hear the instruments used by a real symphony orchestra.

About 270 tickets have also been given to the Sunnyside Club and a further 250 tickets will be distributed by the HK Christian Service to disadvantaged families.

At the launch of the AYO’s 19th season by Hong Kong SAR Chief Secretary Henry Tang (pictured third from right), Chief Executive Tony Tyler emphasised Cathay Pacific’s continued commitment to the orchestra.

The AYO’s three-week concert tour will include Shanghai, Beijing, Tianjin, Taipei, South Korea and Japan. This is the 19th year for CX to sponsor the Hong Kong leg of the AYO’s annual tour.

The mystery man holding the menu of LIFT products in Cathay Pacific Cargo’s new print advertisement has been revealed as Planning Projects Manager Cheuk Lo.

Staff were asked in last month’s CX World to guess who had been chosen to hold the menu with a range of six staff members to choose from.

Almost 400 entries were received with the lucky winners being Tony Ng (IMT) who won the first prize of a two-night stay for two with breakfast at the SkyCity Marriott Hong Kong.

The second prize of a Savannah Excursion Hat Box Candle sponsored by OmWorld goes to Ryan Fung (CGO) while the third prize winner is Patcy Li (ISD) who receives a 3-in-1 home fragrances gift set sponsored by Shanghai Tang.

Cheuk says he was asked by Assistant Manager Cargo Marketing Services Myra Lee to be the butler as he had the “body shape” she was looking for.

“The photo shoot only took two hours and I was a little nervous at first. But it was pretty easy to do and I didn’t even have to hold the menu as it was placed on a stand for me,” he says.

“I would definitely do it again, but I hope they show my face next time!”

THE BUTLER DID IT: Cheuk picks the winners.

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MSummer sun shines on ladies in special promotionCX Korea has partnered with the Hong Kong Tourism Board to highlight a summer promotion targeted specifically at women, running until 15 September.

Advertisements have been placed on well-known websites popular with female travellers. Gift packs containing Origins products, a one-day MTR pass, HKTB discount coupons, a Hong Kong guidebook and duty-free discount coupons are being distributed.

On 8 August, an online event was launched asking customers to submit “Hong Kong Hot Tips” in five areas – dining, shopping, hotels, hot place and tea time. Prizes include tickets to Hong Kong with hotel accommodation.

BSP just the ticketThe CX Vietnam team celebrated a small but significant milestone on 1 July when they issued their first Billing and Settlement Plan (BSP) ticket.

The process has taken 10 years to implement with CX being one of the key supporters in bringing BSP to Vietnam.

Country Manager Vietnam Suzanne Wong says: “BSP provides the basic sales infrastructure which will allow us to sell across the country in an efficient and controlled environment.

“Without BSP, our sales were largely limited to the ports we operate out of – Ho Chi Minh City and Hanoi.”

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JNB team looks ahead to brighter days

The CX team in Johannesburg brought out the ice-cream cake and balloons last month to celebrate 18 years of flights to South Africa.

The service has seen a significant expansion since the first flight landed at Johannesburg International Airport on 4 July 1991, though like most other routes it is now feeling the force of the global downturn.

“I think Africa as a whole has been less effected by the global recession than more developed regions, but in South Africa itself the recession is now beginning to bite,” says Country Manager South Africa & Indian Ocean David Ryan.

Business in the back end remains buoyant but over the last couple of months premium travel has been badly hit.

“We were doing relatively well earlier in the year but since May we have regularly been seeing front-end revenue down by 40-50 per cent year-on-year. It’s the single most challenging aspect of a very challenging environment.”

In terms of business travel, Tokyo remains the biggest front-end destination to and from South Africa.

“Many of our biggest corporate clients are Japanese car companies and so they do a lot of travel to and from Japan – although sadly this year not as much as we would like,” says David. “For most of the rest of our corporate clients, China is the main destination.”

Next year South Africa will host the football World Cup, though David has doubts about whether it will present a good business opportunity for CX.

“I’m sure we’ll get a lot of traffic from places like Japan and Korea, but I think we saw with the Olympics that these big sporting events don’t always lead to the huge traffic upsurge you might expect,” he says.

There are 54 countries in Africa and the South African team continues to to look for other opportunities in the continent.

“We already get significant amounts of business both to and from other African countries,” says David.

There are GSA offices in Zimbabwe, Zambia, Mauritius, Madagascar and Kenya, and the team is also active in several other markets including Namibia, Botswana and Reunion.

“Growing this revenue is a major focus and we’re also looking at expanding into a number of markets including Mozambique, Malawi and Angola,” he says.

On the inbound side, South Africa retains its draw as a leisure destination, while there’s a large amount of Chinese traffic coming into many African countries – much of it labour traffic.

“The Chinese government is forging very close ties with many African governments and is doing a lot to help these countries upgrade their infrastructure,” says David.

“With our team in China we are very well placed to capture a lot of that traffic.”

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The BSP implementation team, including Suzanne Wong and colleagues Vivian Nguyen and Trang Nguyen Thanh, visit Traveland – the travel agency who issued the first CX BSP ticket in Vietnam.

fun evening to honour long-service staffFour CX India staff were presented with long-service awards in June at the Mumbai town office.

Senior Sales Coordinator Gunavanti Kotian, Administrator Officer Norman Dias and Administration Officer Vijay Kandari celebrated 20 years of service while Executive Secretary Sunita D’Silva celebrated 25 years at CX.

Each awardee was introduced with a slideshow of photos of their time at CX while General Manager India, Middle East, Africa & Pakistan Tom Wright presented them with a picture collage of their CX memories and a commemorative plaque.

Pictured from left to right are Sunita, Tom, Gunavanti, Vijay, Personnel & Administration Manager Neil Andrade and Norman.

Vancouver staff show paddle powerThe Vancouver Cathay Pacific team took part in the Rio Tinto Alcan Dragon Boat Festival in June.

The 21-year-old event is a celebration of multi-culturalism, attracting over 90,000 people and more than 180 dragon boat teams from around the globe.

The event was a festive affair with various sponsored booths for visitors to sample dishes from aspiring chefs and play games.

At the Cathay Pacific booth visitors could have a photo taken on the Great Wall of China or

alongside the panoramic skyline of Hong Kong. A contest was also held for visitors to win a

ticket to either Beijing or Hong Kong. The airline was also the race course

sponsor and VP Canada Alex Shum (left) made a traditional offering to ask for a

blessed and safe race.

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New premium lounge gets a rousing receptionChief Executive Tony Tyler joined VIP guests Managing Director Malaysia Holdings Berhad Tan Sri Bashir Rahman and Director General Department of Civil Aviation for Malaysia Dato’ Azharuddin Abdul Rahman for the official opening of the First and Business Class Lounge at Kuala Lumpur International Airport (KLIA) on 16 July.

“The opening of this lounge by Cathay Pacific demonstrates two things: firstly Cathay Pacific’s commitment to investing in and expanding our business here in Malaysia and secondly our commitment to providing our customers with the highest quality of service at every point in their journey with us,” Tony said.

The new 370 square-metre lounge can seat up to 94

passengers, features fine marble and wood finishes and includes the signature “Long Table” and “Bamboo Wall”.

In another boost for the team, Cathay Pacific was also named “Foreign Airline of the Year (North East Asia)” at the fourth KLIA Awards 2008 on 27 June.

“This award is a good indication of our dedication and performance in the Malaysian market. It certainly gives us at Cathay Pacific a sense of pride and the drive to continue serving our passengers in the best possible way,” says Country Manager Malaysia & Brunei Katherine Lo, who was on hand to accept the award (above).

VIBRANT MIX: Ian Stark enjoys the varied life of an ASM.

After spending 30 years in sales, marketing and commercial management in the Sydney town office, Ian Stark decided to make a bold move. He is now much closer to the group of core customers and the CX team that delivers great service on ground.

Ian became CX Sydney’s new Airport Services Manager last month – a result of the retirement of former ASM Brian Davis and internal middle management manoeuvres in the SYD team.

He says working in the airport is more procedurally driven than his previous jobs and the biggest challenge has been dealing with the complex procedures and processes that go with the operation.

“It teases my mind sometimes,” he says. “Luckily, Cathay has a great team here and they’ve been very supportive – irrespective of my naive questions at times,” says Ian.

As much as he misses the vibrant Sydney city life, Ian says there’s never a dull moment because no two days are the same at the airport. He also enjoys the mix of office work and then being out there at check-in or the boarding gate in front of the customers.

But the best part of the job is the CX team – 74 people who are full of life, do interesting things, and who genuinely care about the business and the customers.

“They make my day more interesting,” Ian smiles.

MALAYSIAN MAGIC: The team with Tony Tyler, Katherine Lo and General Manager Southeast Asia Anna Thompson at the lounge.

Melchi Sin, Strategic

Unit Manager

1. After 30 years, what is

your favourite CX memory? The CX 60th anniversary party. I remember the stage performance, the celebrities, crew members in the vintage uniforms, and the hyper mood.

2. After years of service, would you like to have a plane named after you? Not a plane, but lifelong First Class travel – that’d be nice!

3. What’s it like to be ISD’s “guy who knows every-thing”? I don’t think there is anyone in CX who knows “everything”.

4. Marco the Sunnyside Club bear sits next to you. What do you two talk about? Marco was the Sunnyside Club Vice Chairman’s idea. It is his baby and I would say it is also his alter ego – full of love and caring.

5. Heard you like climbing mountains. Any mountains you can recommend? There are many beautiful moun-tains in China, I would recom-mend Zhangjiajie in Hunan which is lovely.

6. What is the best way to wind down after a hike? Beers, loads of beers!

7. What’s your preferred viewing on TV? Cartoons. Life there is black and white and very simple.

8. Sin is not actually your surname – what’s the story? My great-grandfather was a man-darin who fled to Guangdong and changed eveything, even the fam-ily name. Either he was an honest man who fought with someone in power and ran for it, or a bribed mandarin who became a fugitive. I hope he was the former!

9. Ideal holiday destination and why? Far west or northern China. Be-fore they are destroyed by us.

10. Essential travel item?

Good travel compan-ions. If you can have good friends who

will pay for you, it is even

better.

Oneminute with...

Los Angeles-based Flight Purser Dorothy Chiu used five days of her SLS in July to take part in a teaching programme at an elementary school in rural Henan.

“Although I went there as a teacher, in the end they taught me how to be content and be thankful for the simplest things,” she says.

“The classrooms are not well equipped – they only have blackboards, desks and chairs and certainly no fans or air con-ditioning. But the students didn’t complain about the heat even when they were sweating in class.”

Dorothy taught first-grade students and their young age meant more interactive learning was required including games, arts and crafts sessions and singing.

“The students loved craft time and when I walked in with my box of materials, they clapped and cheered!” she says. “We wanted to encourage them to use their creativity and imagi-nation which they might not have much chance to do in the regular daily classroom.

“I enjoyed every moment with the students. The smiles and the happiness I could see were my biggest reward.”

On the last day, Dorothy was able to spend some one-on-one time with the students.

“Although there was a language barrier as Putonghua is not my first language, it is amazing how love can break down this barrier. I wish I could have spent more time with them but I am happy I was able to leave a mark on their lives as they did on mine,” she says.

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Beijing through the camera lensStaff discovered a new perspective on Beijing when they participated in the scenic photography trip in June.

The trip was organised for staff to practise their photography skills and included visits to famous scenic spots such as the Olympic Games venues, the Great Wall and hutongs.

FOP’s Fione Wong says: “The trip gave us a chance to share our experience and explore our photo-shooting knowledge.

“The trip to the Great Wall impressed me the most as the section we visited was relatively quiet. The pictures I managed to take there showed the wall, the river, a suspension bridge and a bright blue sky.”

FOP’s Jebsen Chen says he likes the photo he took of the Bird’s Nest stadium. “I like the layer of colours that came out – the blue of the sky, the metallic grey of the stadium and the green of the trees.

“I also like the artwork near the Water Cube be-cause not many people realise it’s there and the figures look like they are running,” Jebsen says.

FOP’s Marcus Alborough says they were lucky

Journey of love

enough to journey to an area of the Great Wall called Simatai. “It is more isolated and there are also well-preserved watchtowers dotted along the wall,” he says.

“My favourite photo is a bike stand on a hutong which was taken while we were walking to local alleyways and old neighbourhoods. This picture epitomises the fact the culture and traditions are not all being lost in Beijing’s quest to develop,” Marcus adds.

REV’s Sindy Lam says the experience of travel-ling with a group all with the same passion for photography was memorable.

“Whenever we reached a scenic spot, we all held out cameras almost at the same time and there were sounds of shutters clicking,” she says. ”

SHUTTERBUGS: (Clockwise from top right) A hutong bikestand by Marcus Alborough, the Great Wall by Terence Tan, drums in Olympic Park by Sindy Lam, the Great Wall by Fione Wong, artwork at the Water Cube by Jebsen Chen and a group photo on the Great Wall.

SIGN YOUR NAME: Camilla Taylor meets the author at an autograph session for Philip Chen’s new book.

DANE’S DEPARTURE: The CCD team prepared a special news board to mark Dane Cheng’s

achievements for his farewell party (left). Ivan, Jimmy and Alan then paid him a musical tribute.

HAPPY ENDING: The BKK team threw a surprise

farewell party for Pornpetch Thanaroek who was

with CX for 28 years.

BOWLED OVER: Cebu staff enjoy a bowling tournament while celebrating the birthdays of two team members.

JUMP FOR JOY: Members of the CX dragon boat team

have fun while racing in Kuala Lumpur.

TOYS FOR LOVE: Winnie Wong and Andy Wong

with the more than 200 toys the AMS team

collected for Sichuan children.

HAPPY TIMES: Tom Wright joins the Mumbai team

for a relaxed moment after a long- service award

ceremony.

Edgar Woo one of the 12 high school students who took part in the first US “I Can Fly” Programme in February, took time out from his holidays in Hong Kong last month to visit Cathay City.

His first impression of the airline’s headquarters was, “wow”. “The sheer size and scope of the facility is amazing,” says Edgar.

In the US version of “I Can Fly”, the student participants went through a nine-week programme, which took them behind the scenes to meet professionals who could share their first-hand experiences through a combination of field trips, lectures and hands-on exercises.

Edgar particularly enjoyed sessions hosted by CX pilots and crew. The visit to Gate Gourmet, CX’s caterer in the US, was also memorable and helped him appreciate the time constraints and effort put in by those working in the aviation industry.

“Our programme was a small-scale one compared to what you have in Hong Kong, but the San Francisco staff did an amazing job with the resources they had,” he adds.

Edgar’s Cathay City thrill

To enter, visit the online quiz entry form on the CX World site. The deadline is noon on Friday, 4 September.

The QuizEnter our latest quiz and win a HK$1,500 meal voucher for the Lobster Bar and Grill or the Summer Palace at the Island Shangri-La Hong Kong.

The hotel is located in the city’s Admiralty district directly above the Pacific Place shopping and dining complex.

The fine-dining Lobster Bar and Grill restaurant (above left) features an

innovative menu with fresh seafood as the highlight. Live musical performances add to the cheerful atmosphere.

At the Summer Palace (left), the best of Cantonese cuisine is available with a wide selection of dim sum favourites featured every lunchtime.

For more information, visit www.shangri-la.com.

The winner of our second prize this month will receive a three-night stay with break-fasts at the Grand Mercure Xidan Beijing.

The 290-room hotel is located in the heart of the city adjacent to popular tour-ists attractions such as Tiananmen Square, the Forbidden City and the antique market.

Guests can enjoy all-day buffet dining at the V9 restaurant which also houses a separate wine area, or sample Cantonese delicacies at the China Kitchen.

The hotel also has a fully equipped fitness centre and swimming pool. Find out more at www.mercure.com.

CARTOON NETWORK: CX Penang staff meet their

favourite Disney characters.

WHIRLWIND TOUR: Edgar Woo visits the CXperience with his parents while on his tour of Cathay City.

16

Easter 2009 was a special time for my family as we all gathered together in Auckland for the first time in nine years.

After the unseasonal heat of Mumbai, I was looking forward to cool weather in New Zealand and I was not disappointed.

Over the next 10 days, we toured the city and the harbour taking in all the sights, in-cluding the Auckland Sky Tower, Auckland Museum and a tour around the harbour.

We then headed to the resort city of Whan-gamata on the Coromandel Coast.

The area is famous for fabulous views and a beautiful rugged coastline. We visited Ca-thedral Cove and the Hot Water Beach in Hahei.

This beach is famous for the hot ther-mal springs that run under the sand and it is wonderful to relax while sitting in these warm pools of water and take in the views.

Cathedral Cove is a good 45-minute trek down the cliff side and we visited a quaint bay called Gemstone Cove which is named after the various coloured stones found along its shoreline.

In Rotorua, we started the day with an ex-citing Zorb ride. A Zorb is a giant inflatable plastic ball that visitors jump into after filling it with a bucket or two of warm water.

I was then pushed down a hill and tumbled around inside the ball till I finally stopped at the base of the slope.

It is similar to being inside a giant washing machine, and I was left giggling and gasping for breath – a truly fun ride.

Not satisfied with just the Zorb, we then took to the luge slopes where we barrelled down cement tracks on tiny sleds.

The ride to the top of the slopes in the gondola was also fantastic as the entire town

Mumbai’s Assistant Marketing Services Manager Francesca Saxena takes a walk on the wild side

Purely New Zealand

SHOW US YOUR TIPS!CX World welcomes staff travel tips from across the network – email us at CCD#SCT

Travel bites

n Balmy time in PhuketStaff are being offered a special price starting from

THB3,000 at boutique hotel Twinpalms Phuket.

Each of the 97 rooms has a private terrace and lagoon view and 15 rooms connect directly to the lagoon pool from their terrace.

The hotel offers a gym, library, contemporary restaurant and juice bar. Guests also have access to the facilities and activities at the nearby Catch Beach Club.

More information on Travel Desk.

n Going by the rulesThe Cathay Pacific City Guides feature Air Crew Tips which have been submitted by staff.

Assistant Manager Business Solutions Inness Chu suggested visiting Rules restaurant in London.

“It was established by Thomas Rule in 1798, making it the oldest restaurant in London. It serves traditional British food, specialising in classic game cookery, oysters, pies and puddings. Excellent service together with decent interior decoration. It totally enriches your dining experience,” Inness says.

Online reservations can be made at www.rules.co.uk

To submit your own tip please go to www.cathaypacifichost.com/cityguides/tips/input.php

The best tip from staff for the July/August period will receive a two-night stay at the Shanghai Hyatt on the Bund.

n Shanghai jazz hands Shanghai’s third International jazz festival is being held in the city from 19-21 September at Jing’An Park.

Many international artists including Laura Fygi, Gilles Peterson and Incognito will be performing. Visit www.jzfestival.com.

This month’s photo was taken by ICM Officer Lawrence Cheung and shows the Conrad Treasury Casino in Brisbane.

“It was evening and there was lightning in the sky from time to time for more than 45 minutes,” Lawrence says.

“I was trying to catch a snapshot of the lightning and took this photo while I was waiting.”

The heritage property is the city’s former Treasury Building – an early 19th-century structure with an Edwardian-Baroque exterior design, ornate colonnades and striking sandstone coloured walls.

“At nighttime, lights come out all over the building which keep changing colours,” Lawrence says.

“The golden yellow captured in the photo was just one colour – there was also purple, red, blue and green,” he adds.

HK$500 for a travel tale!Every month, CX World invites all CX staff to tell unusual, interesting or just downright quirky tales of travel moments around the world.

Sponsored by Inflight Sales, the lucky sender of the main story receives HK$500 worth of inflight sales products of their choice from the ever-changing collection of over 260 items on offer (excluding liquor and cigarettes).

Go shopping at www.cathaypacific.com/dutyfree

Snap happy

THRILLS AND SPILLS: A glimpse of rural life at the Agrodome (top); the natural beauty of Cathedral Cove (above left) and an exciting Zorb ride (above right).

showcases the traditions, history and culture of the native Maori people.

A fully functional village, it is located directly over the area of active geothermal springs. The lives of the villagers are centred around the activity of the springs, to the extent of using the springs and the heat generated from them for their day-to-day activities like cooking and bathing.

Another must-see attraction is the Agro dome for a glimpse into the life on New Zealand’s fa-mous sheep farms and a visit to the Rotorua Museum and gardens.

of Rotorua and the lake could be seen as we ascended to the top of the mountain.

Our seemingly insatiable thirst for mad things to do drove us to take on the famed Sky Swing in Rotorua.

This massive swing is hitched onto two tall posts on the edge of a cliff, and we were strapped into the swing and then winched up to a 90-degree angle.

We swung over the cliff edge and, after a heart-stopping moment, swung back again.

A visit to the Maori village of Whakare-warewa includes a cultural performance that