Serious HK dragon Air Shut Down

[Pinkieslut]

Exit the Dragon: Cathay Pacific axes its Cathay Dragon regional arm
The routes flown by Cathay Dragon will be taken over by Cathay Pacific and HK Express.
David Flynn
Cathay Pacific will scrap its Cathay Dragon offshoot "with immediate effect" as part of an extensive cost-saving exercise aimed at ensuring the parent airline's survival as it weathers the global pandemic and "adapts to the new travel reality."

Cathay Dragon serves as the regional arm of Cathay Pacific, flying to a network of some 50 destinations across Asia, with around half of those being in mainland China.


Cathay Dragon runs a fleet of Airbus A320, A320 and A330 jets.

Cathay Pacific Group Chairman Patrick Healy said that while he was sad to see the end of the 35 year old airline, "the reality is that in these difficult times we must focus on a single world-leading premium travel brand in Cathay Pacific, complemented by a single low-cost leisure travel brand in HK Express."

"There are substantial operation and marketing efficiencies to be gained by combining our fleets and simplifying our brand architecture in this way."

What becomes of the Cathay Dragon fleet and network?
Healy said that Cathay Dragon's routes would be split between Cathay Pacific and HK Express, with the group seeking regulatory approval "for a majority of Cathay Dragon’s routes to be operated by Cathay Pacific and HK Express" – indicating that some of Cathay Dragon's routes will be dropped from the overall network.

The Cathay Dragon fleet was set for an expansion with as many as 16 new Airbus A321neo jets – the first two of which are due to arrive in the coming weeks – which will also debut a new regional business class.


Cathay Dragon's regional business class is designed to suit short-range flights across Asia.

The folding of Cathay Dragon into Cathay Pacific has been tipped in recent months, and in some ways would be the inevitable conclusion to a process which over recent years has seen the airline rebranded from Dragonair to Cathay Dragon, adopt an almost-identical livery to Cathay Pacific, and have its own lounges subsumed by the parent airline.

The move would also mirror a similar play by Singapore Airlines to abolish its regional SilkAir brand and bring that airline's operations back under the Singapore Airlines umbrella. This has already begun, with Singapore Airlines livery now adorning some former SilkAir Boeing 737 jets.

Healy also announced that Cathay Pacific has pushed back the delivery of its Boeing 777-9 jets to "beyond 2025", which will also delay the debut of the airline's next-generation first class suites and business class seats.

 

[Hypocrite-The]

Cathay Pacific cuts 8,500 jobs, closes regional airline due to COVID-19 pandemic
Posted 4hhours ago

Cathay Pacific is cutting about a quarter of its workforce.(ABC News: Dan Conifer)
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Hong Kong airline Cathay Pacific is cutting 8,500 jobs and shutting a regional airline as it grapples with the downturn in air travel due to the coronavirus pandemic.
Key points:

• Cathay Pacific will cut 24 per cent of its workforce and executive pay cuts will continue throughout 2021
• Its regional airline Cathay Dragon will cease operating from Wednesday
• Cathay Pacific Airways chairman Patrick Healy estimated that passenger levels would only return to pre-pandemic levels in 2024

About 5,300 employees based in Hong Kong and another 600 elsewhere will likely lose their jobs, and 2,600 unfilled positions will be cut.
The cuts are about 24 per cent of the company's workforce, Cathay Pacific said in a statement.
"The global pandemic continues to have a devastating impact on aviation and the hard truth is we must fundamentally restructure the group to survive," Cathay Pacific CEO Augustus Tang said.
"We have to do this to protect as many jobs as possible, and meet our responsibilities to the Hong Kong aviation hub and our customers."
The company will shut down Cathay Dragon, its regional airline unit, with operations ceasing from Wednesday.
Catch up on the main COVID-19 news from October 21 with our coronavirus blog.
It will seek regulatory approval for most of the Cathay Dragon routes to be operated by Cathay Pacific and its budget airline subsidiary HK Express.
The airline said the restructuring was aimed at reducing its "cash burn" by about $HK500 million ($91.2 million) a month.
"We continue to burn HK$1.5-2 billion cash per month. This is simply unsustainable," Mr Tang said.

The airline's Hong Kong employees will have their pay frozen and bonuses scrapped.(Reuters: Bobby Yip)
The plan will cost about $HK2.2 billion ($401.1 million).
The airline will also cut executive salaries, impose a pay freeze and scrap bonuses for all its Hong Kong employees.
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Ground staff will be offered a voluntary leave plan in the first half of next year.
Industry not set to recover until 2024
In a news conference, Cathay Pacific Airways chairman Patrick Healy estimated that passenger levels would only return to pre-pandemic levels in 2024.
"The future remains highly uncertain. This crisis is deeper and the road to recovery slower and more patchy than anyone thought possible just a few short months ago," he said.
Mr Healy said Cathay Pacific was more affected than its peers as the airline is "100 per cent reliant on cross-border travel", much of which has stopped as passengers remain wary of flying amid travel restrictions.
Major destinations such as mainland China and other countries like Singapore and Thailand have temporarily closed their borders to visitors.
How fast is coronavirus growing around the world?
Data sources: Johns Hopkins Coronavirus Resource Center, Our World in Data, The COVID Tracking Project, ABC
Mr Healy estimated Cathay Pacific would be operating at less than 25 per cent of capacity for the first half of 2021, and under 50 per cent of capacity for the rest of the year as a whole.
That might pick up in the second half of the year as travel constraints hopefully ease, he said.
In June, Cathay Pacific raised $HK39 billion ($7.1 billion) in a recapitalisation plan that gave the city's Government a stake of about 6 per cent in the airline.

 

[syed putra]

For Cathay , it's just a matter of storing unused aircraft.
For airasia, it's giving up its leased aircraft back to lessor.