Chow Chee Hou

Cathay Pacific today (6 December) announced that it will expand its already-extensive international network by adding two new routes in 2011 - a four-times-weekly service to Abu Dhabi, the capital city of the United Arab Emirates (UAE), commencing 2 June, and a daily flight to Chicago in the United States, which launches on 1 September. The Chicago service, which will be operated by a Boeing 777-300ER, will boost the airline’s presence in North America and provide passengers with increased connectivity between the Midwestern United States and Hong Kong and the rest of Asia. Given the demand for travel to other US cities via Chicago, Cathay Pacific intends to launch code-share services from its new gateway with oneworld alliance partner American Airlines and looks forward to announcing details in the near future. The Abu Dhabi service will be operated by an Airbus A330-300 aircraft with departures to and from Hong Kong on Tuesday, Thursday, Saturday and Sunday. Cathay Pacific has been serving the United Arab Emirates market for more than 30 years and currently offers a double-daily operation to and from Dubai. With the addition of Abu Dhabi, the airline expects to see high demand for travel to Hong Kong and other Asian destinations through its second destination in the UAE. Chief Executive Tony Tyler said: “We are extremely excited about being able to expand our network in 2011 with new services to Chicago and Abu Dhabi. We already have a significant presence in both the United States and the Middle East, and these new destinations will help to meet demand for both business and leisure travel to and from Hong Kong. The continued expansion of our network highlights our commitment to boosting our home city’s role as one of the world’s great international aviation hubs.” With the launch of these two new services, Cathay Pacific will serve a total of 50 online passenger destinations. In addition to launching new destinations, Cathay Pacific will also strengthen services to two key destinations in North America – New York and Toronto. The former will get three more flights a week from 27 March to 1 May 2011, making a total of 24 flights a week, and from 2 May will become a four-times-daily service. Toronto, meanwhile, will have two more flights a week added from 1 May, turning it into a double-daily service. Full details of the schedules for the new destinations and service enhancements can be found here. All new flights will be open for sale on 9 December. CCD

[Airline braces for more pain following 2008 record loss Briefings for staff on Thursday - conducted by Chief Executive Tony Tyler and Chief Operating Officer John Slosar - pulled no punches in giving details of why the Cathay Pacific Group made a big loss last year, and why the situation seems to be going from bad to worse. The reasons behind the HK$8.6 billion loss - the triple whammy of a soaring fuel bill, fuel hedging losses and a recession-drive in passenger and cargo demand - were clearly outlined, with both Tony and John going into some detail to explain how the hedging losses came about. "The airline business was a bad business to be in last year and the hedging situation just made it worse," said John. Staff were shocked to discover that, disregarding hedging and other variables, CX and KA actually made a HK$1.34 billion operating loss in 2008 compared to a HK$5.2 billion gain in 2007, and that there was a significant drain on the Group's cash reserves last year. Tony made it clear that the big worry is what will happen in the months to come. Hedging losses are still being made - HK$1.9 billion in the first two months of 2009 - but the major concern now is the continued impact of the economic downturn on the airline's core business. "We budgeted for an overall reduction in revenue this year, but cargo revenue is well down even against this low budget and passenger revenue is also well behind," said Tony. "We are filling up the back end, but at very low yields, while our front end revenue for January and February was down 34% on 2008. And remember that every premium passenger we lose is worth many in Economy Class." John explained that negative currency effects are also taking a big bite out of earnings. "Generally we'd like the dollar to be weak because it means the tickets we sell in other currencies can be turned into more Hong Kong dollars, but at the moment we have a 'perfect storm' of currencies working against us to push down yields." Yields are also being driven down by a slew of cheap fares that are propping up back-end business, and to make it a perfect storm all round the airline's hedging position means it is not getting the full benefit of the low fuel price. Both the CE and COO concluded that 2009 is going to be a very tough year. The weakening revenue picture makes it clear that even the airline's revised budget and general belt tightening will not be sufficient. "If we don’t take action now we are looking at another, possibly even larger operating loss for 2009. Given the rate at which our cash balance has been depleted this would place the airline in a very precarious position," John said. A thorough review of every flight - passenger and cargo - to every destination is now being undertaken and management will soon have a clearer picture of which flights the airline cannot afford to keep operating. This will give an estimate of what surplus capacity there is and whether aircraft need to be parked. The team is already looking at lease renewals and the possibility of deferring deliveries. In terms of conserving cash, cancelling some flights will help and further efforts will be made to reduce non-customer costs and defer capital expenditure. Both John and Tony made it clear that some difficult decisions might have to be made. "I know that job security is uppermost in everyone’s minds and it remains our wish and intention to do all we can to keep the network intact, and to keep the team together. However, at the end of the day our ability to do that will depend on the market - and the market has got much worse than we expected," Tony said. "I fear it’s inevitable that there is going to have to be some pain, which will be shared by all of us on the team. To get our costs down and to preserve our cash balances I think it’s unavoidable that we will be asking for more unpaid leave. And I can’t rule out the possibility of even more painful measures being needed to be taken." In a sharp and painful downturn "we need to plan for the worst. But eventually the market will recover - and Asia will probably lead the charge when it does," Tony said. "Our job is to make sure CX is alive and well and ready to take advantage when that happens and we will do everything we can to guide the company through these challenges. "Right now, what you can all do to help is to do your job as well as you possibly can."

i think MH should join any of the alliance ASAP.....to survive... ONEWORLD: Record revenues raised for oneworld airlines through alliance fares and sales activity Airlines in oneworld benefited from record revenues from the alliance's sales activities in 2007 - when the grouping completed its biggest expansion yet. Eight million passengers transferred between the airlines' flights during the year - 6 per cent more than in 2006 - producing interline revenues within the alliance of US$2.2 billion, up 19 per cent year-on-year. Revenues generated by oneworld fares and sales activity totaled more than US$725 million, a 10 per cent increase. A key driver behind these rises was the alliance's biggest membership expansion since its launch in 1999, with Japan Airlines, Malév Hungarian Airlines and Royal Jordanian joining on 1 April 2007 as full members, with LAN Argentina and LAN Ecuador as affiliates, followed six months later by China's Dragonair. So 2007's revenues include nine months of contributions from most of the new recruits, and three months from Dragonair. Even without this, the alliance's established members would have enjoyed healthy growth in their revenues from oneworld. Alliance sales to the corporate sector were particularly strong in 2007, with revenues from businessflyer, the alliance's product for small and medium sized accounts in key target markets, up by a fifth on 2006. More than 7,000 corporate customers are now signed up in Belgium, France, Germany, the Netherlands, Switzerland, with the product extended last year to Italy too. Yields from oneworld sales overall also remained solid, with more than two-thirds of revenues generated by the alliance's fares coming from tickets sold for travel in premium cabins. The alliance also maintained its focus on supporting their efforts to reduce costs. Savings from its joint procurement activities now total more than US$300 million, with the bulk of 2007's benefits coming from initiatives in the Engineering and Maintenance arena. These efforts helped oneworld maintain its position as the airline grouping with the best financial track record. Based on latest full year results from members of all three alliances, oneworld members averaged an operating margin of 6.4 per cent - against 5.8 for Star and 5.6 for SkyTeam. Over the past three years, the combined net profits of oneworld member airlines have totalled US$8.8 billion, while SkyTeam members have lost US$6.9 billion between them and Star's partners have reported collective losses of US$10.1 billion. oneworld also continued its award-winning ways, voted the World's Leading Airline Alliance for the fifth year running in the 2007 World Travel Awards, based on votes cast by some 170,000 travel professionals, including more than 110,000 travel agents in 200 countries. Further details on the alliance's performance in 2007 are featured in its 2007 businessreport, available now from oneworld Project Directors at its member airlines or from any member of its central alliance team. oneworld Managing Partner John McCulloch said: "In a business where operating margins are thin at best - let alone at a time of soaraway fuel prices - revenues and cost savings from oneworld make an increasingly important input to our member airlines' financial standings, and we are committed to increasing the contribution the alliance makes. "Besides our record membership expansion, our record revenues in the past year also reflect the quality of service oneworld and its member airlines provide, our unparalleled international route network and our unmatched range of alliance fares and sales products."

don't eat at the 'kopitiam'.they rip you off like no one

disgusting and cheap look...what are they thinking? or do they ever think at all?

good la.finally change uniform.the male ninja turtle uniform is killing....hopefully the change will bring something good.

MH should improve their product to retain their customer and gain profit.what they are doing now is driving their customers away.silly act.

happened on my flight.parents were in first class.son was in ey.after arrival,parents left,son was still in the seat sleeping. :lol:

aiyo, why SQ needs MH.they are far more better in any corner compare to MH. the MH tidak apa attitude....make me sick.those tidak apa people should be killed. they are the bad mole la

load for hkg-pen-hkg is always good.many attitude malaysian always take cathay then transit to china or america.