news who, what, where taipei double good top of stunning...
TRANSCRIPT
A magazine for staff and friends of Cathay Pacific Airways
Taipei double winners Team takes two honours at annual conference
news
Meet the 2009 S&R champions
Stunning JapanSpotlight on Nagoya for quick getaway
travel
Good sports!
features
Team unfazed by tall challenge
Top of the pile
who, what, where
Page 5 Page 8-9 Page 14 Page 16
PRINTED ON 100% RECYCLED PAPER
February 2010, Issue 167
DefecT-free from AprilStaff urged to help in drive towards improved passenger experience
Airline roars into Year of
the TigerThree Cathay Pacific “tigers”, Everest Lau, Grace Ho and Sabrina Lau, are looking forward to a roaring Lunar New Year.
The three Management Trainees posed with some furry friends in anticipation of the start of the Year of the Tiger on 14 February, which is being celebrated once again by the Cathay Pacific International Chinese New Year Night Parade.
Organised by the Hong Kong Tourism Board, and sponsored by the airline for the 12th consecutive year, this year’s parade features 40 performing troupes from around the world.
The parade will be led by the CX float, featuring uniform staff along with 10 colleagues wearing the CX Volunteers uniform and 20 young people who have taken part in the airline’s signature youth programme “I Can Fly.”
General Manager Marketing & Product James Ginns says the focus on the CX Volunteers highlights the broader theme of Cathay Pacific’s People and Service campaign – “Meet the team who go the extra mile to make you feel special”.
Back to the Sevens
Cathay Pacific has begun the buildup to the 2010 Hong Kong Sevens by announcing that “the fun is back”. The campaign includes a video competition and a number of social media initiatives to get fans engaged.
• See page 2
“Z-ADDs” has become the buzz-word in Engineering as the depart-ment works towards an aggressive goal – for all aircraft departing Hong Kong to be free of defects that im-pact on the passenger experience by 1 April.
A lot of work has already been done and the Z-ADDs – zero acceptable de-ferred defects – concept is already on
place on the Boeing 777-300ER and Airbus A340-300 fleets.
From April, ENG is committed to en-suring that no aircraft leaves the home hub with a faulty seat, toilet malfunc-tion, inoperable inflight entertain-ment system or any other problem that will detract from a passenger’s ability to sit back and enjoy the flight.
The defect-free drive was set in mo-
tion in 2008 and is included in the raft of strategy projects that are helping to reshape the way things are done at Cathay Pacific.
“We now have complete account-ability within the team to ensure that our aircraft depart with cabins in good working order,” says Steve Chad-wick, General Manager Engineering Technical.
“But this is a project that belongs to everyone in the airline and we call on cabin crew and other staff to help us by making sure every problem – no matter how small – is put in the log.”
A crucial component of the Z-ADDs drive is the new Cabin Maintenance Centre (CMC) at HAECO.
• Continued on page 2
2
The Sevens fun beginsSocial media elements taken to the next level for annual sporting event“Having fun” is the basic concept behind the airline’s advertising campaign around this year’s Cathay Pacific/Credit Suisse Hong Kong Sevens, with fans not only watching the action but also Twittering about it, making videos beforehand or tak-ing pictures for the photo competi-tion when the action gets underway at the Hong Kong Stadium on 26 March.
Marketing Manager Grace Cheung says the overall concept of the “The fun is back!” theme is simply that the Hong Kong Sevens is a time to enjoy yourself.
“This is a once-a-year chance for fans to let their hair down and put business behind them. Last year was quite a depressing one worldwide so it’s even more important to take a break and have some fun,” she says.
The print ad depicts people wear-ing business outfits but with an add-ed fun element such as face paint or a rugby scarf, which carries on the theme of “transforming” yourself to enjoy the year’s most entertaining sporting event.
The television campaign takes that a step further by showing how the “transformation” happens.
More social media elements have been included this year with the popular video competition being held again and the winner receiving
Defect-free from April• Continued from page 1
The CMC, which officially opened on 22 January, houses a team of 50 – mostly HAECO staff working alongside representatives from CX and suppliers for the seats and IFE.
“While the CMC has been in op-eration since 2008, we have now expanded its capability to centralise the management of cabin defects, cabin standards and maintenance schedules,” says Steve.
“The CMC controls the rectifica-tion of any cabin defect recorded on a CX or KA aircraft, and ensures that 70% of defects are fixed in less than a day with well over 95% fixed
tickets to the 2011 event. Fans who send tweets with #hk-
sevens in the content have a chance to win a Cathay Pacific-branded Hong Kong Sevens souvenir, with 10 prizes a day being given out from 22 February.
And for those with no time to up-date their Facebook or Twitter sta-tus, the Cathay Pacific Alibi applica-tion will step in to help.
CX Live Twitter is another new nnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnn
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Produced by CX’s Corporate Communication Department
7/F North Tower, Cathay Pacific City, Lantau, HK
Publisher: C K YeungManaging Editor: Mark Tindall
Editor: Joyce WongEnquiries: 2747-5293GalaCXy ID: CCD#SCT
Email: ccd#[email protected]
Performance Index
60.03%
87.84%Within 15 mins
Industry standard
on-the-dot CX standard
On-time performance
Passengers carried 2,216,131 5%
Passenger load factor 83.9% 4.9pt
ASKs (000) 9,665,423 -2%
Freight carried 144,000 25.0%
Cargo load factor 78.6% 15.7pt
ATKs (000) 1,930,360 -2.7%* Figures for Dec 2009
Traffic/capacity (CX + KA)*
Tony Tyler, Chief Executive
Message from the
Chief Executive
I’m writing this message a few days before the Chinese New Year holi-day and I think it’s safe to say we are going to enjoy a strong peak. Bookings are very high and we have done all we can in terms of putting on extra capacity, this year mounting a total of 106 extra sec-tors compared to 46 over last year’s Lunar New Year period. This is an-other indication that business is re-covering from the lows of 2009.
We still remain cautious on the longer-term outlook – a sentiment that was echoed by many industry figures at the recent Singapore Air-show – but we can be heartened by the turnaround that’s taken place over the past three or four months.
We should get a much clearer picture of how things will develop after the New Year holiday, though already we can be encouraged by the gradual return of premium traf-fic and continued high demand on the cargo side
On the subject of our latest trav-el peak, I’d like to say a few words about the invaluable contribution made by our customer-facing staff.
For those of us with regular of-fice jobs it’s hard to imagine the pressure our teams on reservations hotlines, at airports and on the air-craft will come under as loads get close to 100%.
It will be a tiring and stressful time but I know that our frontline colleagues will do everything they can to ensure our passengers can fully enjoy their well-deserved breaks.
Our service teams did a superb job in 2009 and it was gratifying to see approval ratings rise even during such a challenging period. This year I’m confident we can take things to new heights, helped by a number of strategy action items that are all about improving the customer experience.
A sincere thank you to all our service staff for a continued great effort, and particularly for being willing to go the extra mile when the going gets tough.
I’d like to take this opportunity to wish everyone at Cathay Pacific and Dragonair a peaceful and pros-perous Year of the Tiger. Kung Hei Fat Choi!
initiative this year with tweets be-ing sent out from the Cathay Pacific account during the three-day event for those who did not manage to get hold of tickets.
Online Marketing Manager Ali Bullock says: “Last year we launched the Hong Kong Sevens City Guide mobile applications and the video competition mainly to test the mar-ket and see the response. This year we’ve taken the social media aspect
to the next level.” Ali says the passionate element of
the Hong Kong Sevens makes it an ideal platform for social media.
“The Sevens is an event that peo-ple talk about, tweet about and take a lot of photos of, so it really suits the social media world,” he says.
“I see the television and print ads as drawing people in and the social media component as continuing that engagement,” Ali adds.
within three to four days.”In ISD, a group of Inflight Service
Managers have been recruited as Cabin Quality Specialists, helping to spread the message about the importance of reporting defects among the crew community.
Another major boost in the de-fect-free drive will come from the development of an e-Cabin Log, which will enable crew to directly input defects through simple drop-down menus and then link with systems on the ground to alert engi-neers – and even Reservations staff – about the problem.
Trials for the e-Cabin Log will be-gin in March.
READY TO ROLL: Steve Chadwick (third from right) joined CX and HAECO managers to celebrate the official opening of the CMC.
3
HKACE awards acknowledge individual, team effortsThe hard work of the CIS & CRM team and Airport Supervisor Joanna Hon were recognised at the annual award ceremony of the Hong Kong Association for Customer Ser-vice Excellence (HKACE) on 22 January.
COO John Slosar, Director Service Delivery Ivan Chu and Director Corporate Affairs Quince Chong, who is also Chair-man of HKACE, were present to congratulate the staff.
Joanna won the silver award in the Field and Special Service category while the CIS & CRM team won bronze in the In-ternal Support Team category.
“I was honoured to be selected to join in the compe-tition and I would like thank the team at the Hong
GREAT WORK!: John Slosar with Joanna Hon (above) and the CIS & CRM team on stage to receive their award from Hong Kong Secretary for Commerce and Economic Development Rita Lau (second from left) and Quince Chong (second from right).
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n CNY treatsFor the first three days of the Year of the Tiger, Chinese New Year goodies will be offered to all passengers flying out of Hong Kong and selected outports.
From 14-16 February, those travelling in First and Business Class will receive a pack of deep-fried dumplings and sesame balls, while a pack
of deep-fried dumplings will be placed on Economy Class passengers’ meal trays.
n Irene Lee appointed The CX Board of Directors ap-pointed Irene Lee Yun-lien as an Independent Non-Executive Director with effect from 13 January.
Ms Lee, 56, is the Chairman of Keybridge Capital Limited, a financial services company listed on the Australian Stock Exchange, and a Non-Executive Director of the Myer Fam-ily Company, QBE Insurance Group and ING Bank (Australia).
She has held senior positions in investment banking and funds management over the past 20 years.
n Double miles in CanadaPassengers travelling on CX flights out of Canada can take advantage of the Asia Miles Double Miles Offer if they fly between 15 February and 31 May.
The offer, open to Canadian residents, is available with the purchase of a qualifying First or Business Class round-trip ticket originating from Vancouver or Toronto to Hong Kong.
n No surcharge changeThe Hong Kong Civil Aviation Department announced that for February CX could maintain the same level of passenger fuel surcharges as the previous month – HK$78 for short-haul flights and HK$362 for long-haul flights.
The CAD reviews fuel sur-charges on a monthly basis.
Briefs
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airports worldwide support CX’s Self-Print Boarding Pass option
32
Industry optimism upAirshow pulse check shows aviation coming back to lifeThe Singapore Airshow was a magnet for reporters and analysts, who were out in droves trying to capture the mood of the industry as it emerged bruised and battered from one of the worst years in recent history.
The event saw manufacturers still quite downbeat, saying that orders were in short supply and demand was likely to remain pretty flat in 2010.
Most airlines, however, were showing increased optimism – albeit with a good dash of caution – on the back of recently improved figures.
The general sentiment at the show echoed what Cathay Pacific has been saying in recent weeks – that the pendulum swung back in the last quarter of 2009, led by a cargo surge, and that the picture is looking decidedly less bleak moving into 2010.
“I’m cautiously optimistic,” Chief Executive Tony Tyler told Reuters in Singapore.
“We saw a recovering trend in the last quarter of 2009 and some of the strength in both the premium passenger market and the cargo market has carried through into the first quarter of this year. That gives us rather more comfort than we had last year,” Tony said.
Caution is still the key word for IATA, which issued a statement before the Singapore event saying that the recovery in demand in
recent months has yet to translate into higher fares.
IATA Director & Chief Executive Officer Giovanni Bisignani stressed that airline revenue improvements “will be at a much slower pace than the demand growth that we are starting to see. Profitability will be even slower to recover,” he said.
The most important news for premium carriers such as CX is the recovery in front-end travel – which, while still some way from being a resurgence, is trending in the right direction.
Premium seats are beginning to
fill up once again as the economy improves and companies allow executives to fly again.
The home market is key to CX’s front-end business and Chitty Cheung, General Manager Sales, PRD & HK, says that premium traffic in January was strong, especially on long-haul routes.
“We haven’t seen a lot of corporates further relaxing their travel policies, which means that short-haul front end will still be an area of concern,” says Chitty.
“Overall, though, the first quarter of 2010 looks promising.”
CAUTIOUS OPTIMISM: Front-end bookings are gaining momentum.
Services being strengthenedA number of regional and medium-haul services are set to be beefed up in response to increasing demand.
Following on from last month’s announcement on enhanced services to North America, the airline has confirmed that Jeddah and Seoul will also get more flights, while Sapporo will enjoy an increased service over the busy summer peak.
From 28 March, Jeddah will move from four flights a week to a daily service – just five months after the destination came on line.
In Seoul, the team is gearing up for the return to five flights a day – service, following a service reduction brought about by the business downturn.
The CX416/417 flights will be restored on four days a week from 1 May, becoming daily by 1 July.
Other enhancements already announced include an increase in frequency on the Sapporo route – from four flights a day to daily – for July and August, and a retiming of the daily non-stop service between Hong Kong and Mumbai.
Produced by CX’s Corporate Communication Department
7/F North Tower, Cathay Pacific City, Lantau, HK
Publisher: C K YeungManaging Editor: Mark Tindall
Editor: Joyce WongEnquiries: 2747-5293GalaCXy ID: CCD#SCT
Email: ccd#[email protected]
As of December 2009,
Kong Airport for their support and encouragement,” Joanna says.
“I was overwhelmed at receiving the award and it will encourage me
to continue to strive for excel-lence in the future.”
Manager, CIS & CRM Programme Anna Or, CRM Project Manager Elaine Lee and Data Exploitation Manager Carlo Chui were present to accept the team award.
“We were very encouraged to
receive this recognition and regard it as a push for us to fur-ther improve the support we provide staff to help them bet-ter serve our customers,” Anna says.
4
Social media drive Ports develop more local Facebook pages and Twitter feeds
Alliance links retained as JAL turnaround beginsJapan Airlines’ position in oneworld has been unaffected by the announcement last month that the airline is to operate under Japanese Corporate Reorganisation proceedings.
The state body overseeing the flag-carrier’s restructuring, the Enterprise Turnaround Initiative Corporation, stressed that it is business as usual for the airline commercially and operationally during its restructuring – including its agree-ments and cooperation with partners.
The airline continues to offer full oneworld services and benefits, and tickets for flights on JAL and its frequent flyer arrangements are unaffected.
In a press release announcing its restructuring moves, JAL stressed that flight operations would be remain uninterrupted, that tickets for travel and frequent flyer miles would be fully protected and that its frequent flyer programme was expected to continue un-changed.
This is the year social media takes off throughout the Cathay Pacific network as plans come to fruition.
Manager Marketing Communica-tions Celine Ho outlined the strategy for 2010 at a day-long social media workshop in Hong Kong on 19 Janu-ary with many outport staff attend-ing.
“Marketing’s role is to deploy and integrate the social media strategies to bring a new and relevant target au-dience to our flagship sites for online sales and servicing,” she says.
“Following the success of the Cathay Pacific global fan page on Facebook, along with the Twitter feed, we will be extending the model to our key markets such as the US, UK, Australia, Japan, Chi-na, Taiwan and India.
“In fact, some ports are already using lo-cal Twitter feeds and Facebook pages as a new customer touch point,” Celine adds.
Online Marketing Manager Ali Bullock outlines three key areas the Online Mar-keting team is focused on developing – travel communities and portals; mobile
and applications; and Web 2.0. The travel communities and portals sec-
tion will include beefing up the content on the CX City Guides website and integra-tion with Google Maps.
Plans for mobile applications will in-clude pre-loading selected cities and im-
proving the speed of access, which Ali admits has been a concern.
“This will also be the year of the e-reader and tablet PC and the content on the CX City Guides site is the obvious information to push on these devices,“ Ali says.
“We are also looking at providing live updates for fast-changing passenger in-formation such as airport security proce-dures.”
Finally, major events and marketing campaigns will leverage Web 2.0 channels into an integrated strategy.
“This includes the next phase of the People and Service campaign and the an-nual Hong Kong Sevens in March, both of which provide a great opportunity to trial new ideas and close the loop further be-tween the traditional TV campaign and online,” Celine says.
“In 2008-09 we built up the applications and platforms and 2010 will be about am-plifying the CX brand, allowing our con-sumers to interact with us in the way they want to and, at the same time, ramping up customer awareness.”
INTEGRATION: The CX City Guides will be receiving a boost with Google Maps.
In an open letter to customers posted on its website, the airline stressed the JAL Group would “continue to provide safe, reliable air travel servic-es to customers worldwide”, and that tickets and reservations remain valid and new reservations are being accepted normally.
The airline said it would honour commitments to commercial partners, including its airline part-ners.
oneworld and its member airlines have offered JAL all possible support through these difficult times and into the future.
The alliance believes its proposals for JAL are vastly superior in every respect to any alliance alternative available to the airline – including commercial benefits totalling US$2 billion over three years.
‘English on Air’ programme shows its worthCathay Pacific’s educational “English on Air” programme received the stamp of approval from Hong Kong Secretary for Education Michael Suen, who attended a special event on 16 January to highlight the work of the programme.
More than 80 students from six secondary schools Tung Chung took part and shared their experience of taking part in “English on Air”.
Chief Operating Officer John Slosar hosted the event and highlighted the importance English plays in connecting people to the world.
“I encourage all the students who have dreams of joining the aviation industry to learn how to speak English well,” he said.
Since “English on Air” launched two years ago, around 700 secondary school students in Tung Chung have taken part in the programme.
SPEAKING OUT: John Slosar (left) and Michael Suen with a special thank you card signed by the students who took part in the “English on Air” event.
5
Top night for Taipei
Ready to fly!Friday, 15 January was an exciting day for 11 cadets as they were joined by senior Cathay Pacific managers in Adelaide to celebrate completing their training in the Cadet Pilot Programme.
Director Flight Operations Nick Rhodes was on hand to con-gratulate the cadets on completing the 60-week course at Flight Training Adelaide.
The cadet pilots of CP31 included two former Cathay Pacific flight attendants, Dennis Leung and Yvonne Tou, who graduated alongside Alvin Chan, Dennis Chen, Jack Chong, Ching Shing- kwok, Alex Ma, Christopher McGuire, Jesse Politis, Matthew Shum, Christopher Wilson and Gordon Yau.
A wings presentation will take place on 11 February at Catalina’s for a earlier class, CP29.
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n Korean smartphone appCX has launched a Korean mobile application that allows passengers to check in through their smart-phones.
The application launch comes on the back of the arrival of the arrival of wi-fi iPhones in the Ko-rean market in December, which became a big story across the country.
n More than satisfactoryCathay Pacific has been voted “Most Satisfying Airline” in an on-line survey organised by Chinese website Sina.com and the Travel Channel.
The survey was conducted over two months from 9 December, with sina.com users casting votes in various award categories, in-cluding domestic travel, outbound travel, transportation, hotel and tourism board.
n Val Mahney rememberedVal Mahney, who worked for CX in Manchester for a great many years and was known as the “life and soul” of the Manchester office, passed away on New Year’s Day after battling cancer.
Val ran sales for the airline in the north of England and later worked as Station Manager in Manchester and London.
n oneworld model available
A 1:500 scale model of the A330-300 painted in the special livery created to celebrate oneworld’s 10th anniversary is now available at CXcitement outlets.
The die-cast model retails at HK$260 but is available with a 20% discount for staff at the Cathay City outlet.
n Year-round saleThe Inflight Sales team is now offering a year round online staff sale for all CX staff. Items on offer include fragrances, watches and jewellery, with discounts of up to 25%.
Go to intracx.cathaypacific.com/dutyfree/staffsales
Briefs
From November 2008 to November 2009, there were more than
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Record year for airports, challenge on to make 2010 even better
Job very well done Last year was an extraordinarily good one for the Cathay Pacific and Drago-nair airport teams, and Chief Execu-tive Tony Tyler acknowledged this by opening the 2010 Airports Confer-ence with just three words: “congratu-lations” and “thank you.”
Over 170 airport staff from around the network and Head Office met in Cathay City on 3-4 February for the first joint CX/KA meeting since the Head Office function for the two air-lines was combined in September 2008.
“Objectively the performance has dramatically improved,” says General Manager Airports Peter Langslow.
“The combined performance index for CX rose from 67.41 in 2008 to 75.84 points in 2009 and this is against a one-point rise in high load factors.”
On-time performance for both CX and KA also improved – by 8.5 points for CX and 11.7 points for KA.
And for both airlines there was significant improvement in baggage delays which plummeted 43% for CX and 32% for KA.
“Apart from annoying 83,000 fewer passengers, the associated expenses were reduced by over HK$20 million,” Peter says.
Despite this, Peter is asking for even more in 2010. “While we are de-lighted that 2009 levels have jumped so much, the challenge now is to take these levels as the new baseline from which to build in 2010,” he says.
downloads from the CX City Guides website
Taipei was the big winner at the annual Airport Performance Awards which honour ports across the network for their various achievements over the course of the last year.
For the first time, separate awards were presented to the top-performing Cathay Pacific and Dragonair teams in most categories.
After an incredible effort, the Taipei teams won Outstand-ing Airport Performance 2009 awards for both CX and KA.
Shanghai was runner-up on the KA side followed by Kaohsi-ung. For CX, the team in Ho Chi Minh City came second with San Francisco third.
KA Busan took five awards in various categories including Best Ramp Performance and Best Self Service Online Check-In, while the KA Manila team took home four Customer Ser-vice awards.
On the CX side, Osaka was a multiple winner taking four awards including the Baggage Handling and Ramp Perfor-mance honours.
different passengers are saying and even compare the airport satisfaction scores on day-time versus night-time departures or by passenger ethnicity,” Peter says.
Another useful tool is a Port Per-formance Analysis workshop which helps managers make sense of the huge volume of performance data available to them.
“It helps them form a picture of what’s happening, from which we can derive insights and develop action plans to respond,” Peter says.
WELL-DESERVED PRAISE: The triumphant CX Taipei airport team celebrate their success with Peter Langslow (top). Peter outlines the 2010 Airports business plan to a packed auditorium at Cathay City (above).
Peter says one of the main reasons for the strong 2009 results was a back-to-basics approach.
“The improvement was the result of the teams focusing on the priorities established from the strategy work and the business planning that fol-lowed. It was simply getting the basics right,” he says.
Part of this was getting underneath the numbers of customer data.
“The Reflex Analyser tool helps Air-port Services Managers to delve into the scores and look in detail at what
South America is a developing area, espe-cially Brazil. And a lot of staff are interested in visiting the cities of North EuropeMiranda Cheong, ENG
The USA. Many sporting events are held in the US and it would be good to have a wider choice of cities to fly to.
Joe Leung, ENG
Eastern European cities such as Prague or Berlin.
Michelle Wong, ISD
My dream destination – Egypt!
Elizabeth Li, ISD
Barcelona would be a good place for a night stopover and there is also a Chinese community already established there.
Ian McClelland, FOP
Hawaii. A good night stop and fun holiday destination.
Matt Fullwood, FOP
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The online poll
Milan launches in March – where else
should CX fly to?
tickets are only available for Level B and above.
We would appreciate it if Bob could clarify his response that “it is important to preserve the exclu-sivity of the First Class Cabin and any further opening up of access to staff travellers would under-mine that objective”.
We think this is being discrimi-natory if Level A staff, irrespective of length of service, would dam-age and dilute the “exclusivity of the First Class Cabin.”
Can we suggest that Level A staff be given the opportunity to purchase one First Class ID ticket a year after completing five years of service?
UK Sales Ops Group
Bob Nipperess, Employee Ser-vices Manager, replies: Cathay Pacific’s staff travel scheme offers a wider range of options than many other airlines.
In particular, it permits access to the premium Business Class cabin for staff of all job levels on an unlimited basis.
In common with many other companies, our benefits policies are structured to differentiate be-tween the various job levels and the same principle applies with the staff travel scheme.
This means that our
Open up the front end We refer to the reply by Bob Nip-peress, Employee Services Man-ager, to a letter in the December CX World asking why First Class ID
Last month we asked: “Change for Good celebrates its 20th anniversary this year. How much of a contribution have you made to the programme?” You answered:
Check out the CX World website and Daily News on IntraCX for next month’s poll question.
0 10 20 30 40 50
A lot – I donate every time I fly or at Cathay City
I contribute occasionally
I have never donated to Change for Good
%
Letters to the Editormore senior colleagues, com-mensurate with their roles and re-sponsibilities in the company, are offered more generous benefits options. This is why the options in the staff travel scheme are dif-ferent according to job level.
Also, with the reduced num-ber of available First Class seats over recent years and the need to maintain the exclusivity of the product for our bona fide cus-tomers, we do not believe it is de-sirable to further open up access to others at this time.
Given the large number of Level A employees, if we were to open access further this would put greater pressure on the ob-jective of keeping the First Class cabin exclusive.
We do review the staff travel scheme rules from time to time but no changes are presently planned.
Miles to go I was hoping to donate my Asia Miles to charity only to discover it’s not possible to donate “small” amounts.
According to the rules “each donation must be of at least 10,000 miles, with further incre-ments of 5,000 miles”.
That’s more miles than earned on a roundtrip Economy Class ticket from Hong Kong to Syd-ney.
I would like to ask whether it can be made easier to donate any amount.
Cathay Pacific has an amazing record in raising funds through the Change for Good program-mme one coin at time and it would be nice to see Asia Miles participate one mile at a time.
Tom Rapin, YTO
Christopher Chang, Manager Programme & Partnership Development, replies: When Asia Miles for Charity was first launched in 2001, it was agreed with the charity partners that donated miles from Asia Miles members should have a mini-mum balance of 10,000 miles.
Because our charity part-ners have limited staff num-bers, while they certainly ap-preciate all donations they would prefer not to incur ex-cessive administrative work.
If Asia Miles members would like to donate their miles to a worthy cause, I would like to point out that Cathay Pacific’s “FLY greener” carbon offset programme to protect the environment accepts dona-tions of as few as 100 miles.
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.
ter for everyone, should we sim-ply stop offering bottled water in order to maintain service consis-tency?
Name withheld
Charles Grossrieder, Manager Catering Services, replies: On long-haul flights we offer indi-vidual bottled water for First and Business Class passengers’ conve-nience as they often wish to take a rest during the flight.
On regional flights passengers are less likely to take long rests so we prefer to offer glasses of water in the more traditional person-alised approach Cathay Pacific is known for.
For weight, space and logistical reasons it is simply not possible to offer individual bottles of water in Economy Class.
However, I understand in spite
of the crew’s best efforts to ac-commodate passenger requests, some will still ask for bottled wa-ter.
In these circumstances, I sug-gest politely declining by explain-ing that individual bottled water is not available, and offering them a glass of water instead.
Water shortageOn long-haul and Australian flights there are bottles of min-eral water available for First and Business Class passengers.
But for regional flights, we only have two to four bottles available for the whole aircraft.
Passengers always request bottled water and sometimes even Marco Polo Club members sitting in Economy Class will ask for it. As there is such a limited supply, it is impossible to accom-modate all requests.
As we don’t have enough wa-
Star letter
Thank you!A young passenger onboard CX777 from Hong Kong to Jakarta on 6 January showcased her artistic skills by drawing a three-page thank you letter for the crew, including Inflight Service Manager Jacqueline Lam and Senior Purser Yael San-tos, who took such good care of her during the flight.
KA PeoPle
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A service boost for a number of des-tinations – including Xiamen and other Mainland cities – is being put into effect to meet expected de-mand over the summer.
The team in Xiamen is looking forward to moving from 18 to 21 flights per week with the arrival of the summer schedule – effective from 28 March to 23 October.
Dragonair boost services for summerThere has been a pick-up in de-
mand to the city in Fujian province – which, in 1985, became KA’s first destination in China – and the ad-ditional flights will help to capture more business and leisure traffic.
For the summer schedule KA will increase the number of flights to Nanjing and Chengdu to 14 and 12 per week respectively, while Chang-
sha and Chongqing will both be-come daily operations.
Chief Executive Officer James Tong says that demand for both business and leisure travel continues to grow, particularly in the Mainland China market.
“The summer period is tradition-ally a peak season for travel so these extra flights will give passengers
more choice and at the same time boost Hong Kong’s position as the premier gateway for travellers head-ing to the Mainland,” says James.
In addition to opeating extra flights, KA will boost capacity to Phnom Penh in Cambodia by op-erating one flight a week with an A330, while flights to Fuzhou will use the bigger aircraft.
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Mentoring the next
generationFirst Officer Jim Ashby is proud to have been one of the pilot men-tors for the Dragonair Aviation Certificate Programme in recent years.
The popular programme, which kicks off for the fifth time in April, owes its success largely to the support of Jim and many other pi-lots who contribute their time and effort to nurture cadets from the Hong Kong Air Cadet Corps, help-ing provide them with first-hand experience of the operation of a commercial airline.
Jim started his career as a fly-ing instructor and received a lot of help from experienced pilots along the way.
“Now it is my turn to give some-thing back to society and help people who have the same dream as I had,” he says.
The cadet programme has also given Jim the opportunity to meet people from different back-grounds and boosted his passion for aviation.
“The enthusiasm of the cadets helped me look at the aviation in-dustry from a fresh perspective,” he says.
“I have been impressed by their positive attitude towards the avi-ation industry, the commitment they have to the programme and the amount of work they put in.”
Jim says enthusiasm is key for any young people looking to pur-sue an aviation career.
“No matter what part of the in-dustry you are in, you are part of the bigger picture,” he says.
“There may be setbacks, but just keep learning and make the most out of every situation you are presented with.”
Cabins sparkle after faceliftThe current cabins on KA’s A330 fleet are starting to look a little worn.
The Dragonair Engineering team decided to hit the “refresh” button, after five years in service, launching a cabin project in January that will eventually see cabins across the en-tire fleet getting a refurbishment.
The first to complete the process in mid-January was B-HSI.
By the end of the year the passen-ger environment on all A330s will have received some much-needed sparkle.
Over three days, B-HSI had many worn and damaged parts such as aisle carpets, seat covers and light lenses replaced, along with broken fixtures like life vest compartment covers.
In addition, seats, meal tables, meal table cavities and toilet com-partments were given a deep clean while leather arm caps and aircraft wallpaper were refreshed.
Head of Engineering Darryl Chan says: “The one-hit refresh pro-gramme means passengers have a chance to appreciate the entire renovated look in one go.”
China team put plans in motion for 2010Dragonair and Ca-thay Pacific staff from around China gath-ered in Guangzhou on 27 January for the 2010 China Manage-ment Kickoff Confer-ence.
Director Sales & Marketing James Bar-rington delivered a state of the nation ad-dress saying while the two airlines were out of “disaster” and into recovery stage, “there was no real cause for celebration yet”.
General Manager China Sam Swire updated the team on the outlook
FRESH LOOK: (above centre) Darryl Chan with CEO James Tong and Assistant General Manager Inflight Services Suzanne Wong get the first look at the renovated cabin on B-HSI.
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for China, outlining the challenges ahead. He reminded staff that, “we are all responsible for our brand, it is not just the staff wearing the uni-
form. We are all sales and service staff.”
General Manager Cargo Mainland China & Hong Kong James Woodrow outlined the China cargo business plan and Director Cor-porate Affairs Quince Chong gave a presen-tation on the environ-ment and the aviation industry.
The afternoon was devoted to the Market-
ing & Sales Conference with a Sales & Marketing Action Plan presentation by Manager Marketing & Sales China Arnold Cheng.
Guest speaker, Founder & Chair-
man of Eastwei Relations Johan Björkstén, talked to the teams about how to manage a brand in the com-plex Chinese marketplace. CMO Oak Pacific Interactive Group Alvin Chi-ang gave a presentation on succeed-ing in a fast-paced online China.
Sam and James Barrington also presented long-service awards to 11 staff whose service ranges from 10 to 20 years.
The formal business over with, the team gathered for a gala dinner that night.
The event included song and dance performances from the four China regions with the Western Chi-na team winning with a song and dance routine to Korean hit song Nobody with KA/CX-specific lyrics.
WAY AHEAD: Sam Swire outlines the China plans for 2010.
The enthusiasm of the cadets helped me
look at the aviation industry from a fresh
perspective
We are the champions!Meet the staff who took the trophies in last year’s inaugural S&R ChampionshipsA smooth
delivery
Last time Chief Executive Tony Tyler went to Seattle for a delivery flight – in October 2009 – the mood was quite sombre as the industry continued to reel from the global downturn.
There’s been something of a turnaround since then, and Tony delivered a more upbeat message as he spoke at the delivery dinner for B-KPO – the 15th Boeing 777-300ER to enter the fleet – on 25 January.
“I’m glad to say that it seems the worst is over,” said Tony. “There is still some uncertainty in the air but at least things are moving in the right direction again.”
From a CX perspective that means taking delivery of more 777-300ERs – four in the space of just two months – and putting them to good use to strengthen the airline’s long-haul network and launch a new destination, Milan, in March.
The delivery of KPO was a pretty high-profile affair and was attended by a number of VIPs from Hong Kong along with 20 leading travel agents from North America – the people who will help to fill the seats on the aircraft.
The delivery dinner was held, fittingly, at Boeing’s Muse-um of Flight and Tony made a point of thanking the manu-facturer for its support during the recent troubles.
“I’d like to thank the Boeing team for the support and understanding shown during the past 18 months when we had to take radical measures to deal with unprecedented problems,” he said.
The CE also thanked the CX team that worked hard to make the delivery a smooth one.
The delivery of the 16th 777-300ER in early February was a low-key, crew-only affair, while Chief Operating Officer John Slosar will lead the delivery for B-KPQ in April.
Badminton
Jacky Chun (PSD)How long have you been
playing badminton? Over 20 years.
How does it feel to be a 2009 S&R champion?
It’s great as more people now know that I play badminton well.
Will you be defending your title in 2010? I’m not sure if I will be able to defend the title but I would love to play other sports in 2010 such as table tennis or squash.
BowlingMichael Yu (FOP)How long have you been
bowling? Five years.
How does it feel to be a 2009 S&R champion?
I‘m very humbled by the win as there are many good bowlers in the company. With
the knockout format anything can happen.
Will you be defending your title in 2010? I will definitely try to.
Annie Loo (ISD)How long have you been bowling? I have been playing since 2000, so almost 10 years now.
How does it feel to be a 2009 S&R champion?I am proud and it feels great to be the first ladies S&R 10-pin bowling champion.
Will you be defending your title in 2010? There are many good players out there, so it will be a good challenge to defend the title. My plans are to train harder and have lots of fun.
DartsWing Wai-lau (FIN)
How long have you been playing darts? Around 20 years.
How does it feel to be a 2009 S&R champion? Happy and proud. Actually, the trophy
is very grand.
Will you be defending your title in 2010? Of course. My plan for 2010 is to enrol new colleagues to join the competition.
Hydi Lui (ENG) How long have you been
playing darts? I have been playing darts for 15
years but have only been a member of the CX darts club for three years.
How does it feel to be a 2009 S&R champion?
When I heard about the S&R Championships I simply wanted to try
out my darts skills and see if I could compete. I also had a chance to meet my old friends who also play darts.
Will you be defending your title in 2010? Yes, I’ll try again.
Golf & SquashJames Barrington (EXO)How long have you been playing golf ? I’ve been playing since I was 18 and squash since I was nine.
How does it feel to be a 2009 S&R champion? The S&R Championships was a great event and I think the main goal for everyone should be participating. I had a good time meeting new colleagues at the matches and encourage everyone to take part.
Will you be defending your titles in 2010? I’ll definitely be competing this year not only in golf and squash but also in tennis and table tennis.
Sarita Chan (TPE)How long have you been playing badminton? It has been quite a while so I do not remember! Maybe eight years.
How does it feel to be a 2009 S&R champion? It feels great! And what’s better is getting to meet and play with colleagues from different parts of the company.
Will you be defending your title in 2010? I will definitely be playing again in 2010 and I look forward to more fun and challenging games.
KPO JOURNEY: Boarding the aircraft back to Hong Kong (top) for a flight with General Manager Operations Russell Davie and First Officer Mike Tomcheck at the helm.
Snooker Eric Leung (PNL)
How long have you been playing snooker? More than 15 years. How does it feel to be a 2009 S&R champion? It’s an honour.
Will you be defending your title in 2010?Keeping in form takes a lot of work so I’ll be putting in a lot of practice over the year.
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We are the champions!Meet the staff who took the trophies in last year’s inaugural S&R Championships
Staff in the Vancouver cabin crew base showed they have not forgotten the problems still being faced by the victims of Typhoon Ondoy in the Philip-pines, taking time out in December to prepare food packages for families in two towns that are still flooded months after the typhoon hit.
A relief and fundraising project called “Share a smile this Christmas” was launched in the Vancouver office and enough money was raised to supply 500 food packages. Staff then spent hours packing the bags which filled the entire pantry area.
Flight Attendant Joel Tuquib flew to the Philippines to help distribute the packages to 500 families in the towns of Barangay Malabanan and Barangay Dela Paz in Binan.
“The packages they received may not be much. The food may not even last a week,” Joel says.
“But for 500 families whose homes and means of living were de-stroyed, we hope this small gesture will give them renewed hope – which in turn will strengthen their spirit and help them face the challenges that are yet to come.”
Joel’s family and friends helped in the distribution and also went around the two flooded towns to see for them-selves how the people are living there.
“We would be happy and honoured if other CX staff would like to con-tribute to future fundraising efforts,” Joel says. “Giving back to the com-munity, not just in the Phillipines but other countries affected by natural disasters, is an ongoing project for me.”
Heart of the Vancouver base
BRINGING RELIEF: Plenty of helping hands during distribution (above); walking around the still-flood-ed towns (below right); hundreds of bags filled the pantry at the YVR base (below left).
Indoor rowingTony Tyler (PVO) How long have you been doing indoor rowing?About 10 years. I did a bit of proper rowing when I was at university many years ago.
How does it feel to be a 2009 S&R champion? Great! It was good fun keeping ahead of all the youngsters!
Will you be defending your title in 2010? I plan to, but it won’t be easy now that my opponents know what time to target. It will be hard work keeping fit enough to make a contest of it next year.
Debora Sung (ISD)How long have you been doing
indoor rowing? Four years.
How does it feel to be a 2009 S&R
champion? It was very encouraging that
my head of department Steven Tsang and ISM Sue Ann Ong brought along other crew to give me support. It gave me pressure but also a lot of motivation!
Will you be defending your title in
2010? Yes. I hope more women will participate in indoor rowing which would be more fun
during the competition.
Table tennis Hydi Lui (ENG) How long have you been playing table tennis? 16 years
How does it feel to be a 2009 S&R champion? I was glad to hear CX was organising this event and I was happy simply to participate.
Will you be defending your title in 2010? Yes, and trying my best.
Cyrus Leung (IMT)How long have you been playing table tennis?Since Primary 4.
How does it feel to be a 2009 S&R champion? I was happy. I didn’t think I would win as there are some very good players on the team.
Will you be defending your title in 2010? Of course. I will try and explore some new techniques to make it easier to win!
TennisMichael Foo (FOP) How long have you been playing tennis?I had my first lesson when I was eight. I was a late starter!
How does it feel to be a 2009 S&R champion? We played the final in miserable weather, making it almost impossible to return serve on the wet courts. I managed to hang in there after losing the first set and feel lucky to have the title.
Will you be defending your title in 2010? I’ll definitely put my name down
and we’ll see what happens!
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New way of workingMore user-friendly product developed after detailed testingBy the time CX and KA cut over to the new Passenger Services System (PSS), all reservations agents will be using a brand-new Reservation User Inter-face (RES UI) developed by Amadeus – the key vendor for the PSS project.
The interface is one of the most important deliverables in the PSS programme with CX the first airline to roll out the product.
The RES UI is a brand-new graphi-cal user interface that will go on top of the existing Amadeus reserva-tions system, allowing users to ac-cess new Amadeus functionalities such as Automatic Ticket Changer.
The outlook is similar to online booking at Cathaypacific.com, but it
covers a much wider range of func-tionalities to enable agents to han-dle various customer requests.
The new system will have a num-ber of advantages over QIKRES, in-cluding:
A more user-friendly outlook; Guided workflow that shows
clearly which step you are at in the whole process;
Easier training; Ensuring service standardisation
and consistency with reduced process errors.
The PSS team in CX is working hard to ensure the airline gets the prod-uct it wants, says General Manager Passenger Services Richard Reed.
Inflight sales on a highThe Inflight Sales team had cause to celebrate in December as revenue for the month surpassed the record previously set in July 2008 by 5.8%.
Festive season shopping by passengers combined with ag-gressive promotions and market-ing helped the team reach new revenue heights.
The record month represented a revenue jump of 27% compared to December 2008.
Inflight Sales & Logistics Man-ager Jasmine Hui says: “Exclusiv-ity is one of the key drivers to stimulate purchasing, so we have been working closely with re-nowned brands to design unique products for our passengers.”
The Inflight Sales team has also expanded offerings for its Home Delivery Service, giving customers a chance to purchase fine wines, caviar and even watch winders inflight and have them delivered directly to a Hong Kong address.
The service was originally launched last October, predomi-nantly offering cases of wine, and has now expanded to include Exclusive Gold Edition miniature cameras and replica Rolleiflex 6x6 cameras from Minox, Cinzia watch winders and gift sets from Caviar House & Prunier.
Jasmine says the original idea was to extend the inflight sales service to passengers’ homes.
“The products were deliberate-ly chosen to be ‘affordable luxury’ in that they are premium but still not too expensive,” she says
“We also wanted to go beyond the perception that inflight sales is only about cosmetics and fragrances,” Jasmine says, adding
the response has been satisfactory so far.
Orders can be made either
inflight or online at Cathay-pacific.
com.
“We are the launch customer for the new interface, playing a key role in the design of a product that will become an industry standard,” says Richard.
“Our Worldwide Reservation & Ticketing team have made a great contribution, providing expertise to shape up the product and working closely with PSS and Amadeus to define the scope, design the screen
Food lovers get ready for tasty annual treatThe popular “Best Chinese Food in the Air” promotion is back for the 10th time featuring dishes from the famed Yung Kee Restaurant in Hong Kong for the fourth time.
The concept was launched in 2000 with the aim of promoting Hong Kong as a gourmet capital as well as enhancing the quality of Chinese food being served inflight.
On the menu this year for First and Business Class passengers are 30 Canto-nese-style favourites from Yung Kee.
Catering Manager – Planning and Con-cept Design Brendan Duffy says the first promotion in 2000 was also with Yung Kee and, through the years, Cathay Pacif-ic has worked with some of Hong Kong’s finest restaurants and chefs to raise the bar for inflight Chinese food.
“Ten years on, and who better to work with but our first partner Yung Kee,” Bren-dan says. “It’s one of CX’s longest running
promotions and I would be surprised if any other carrier could claim such a feat as this.”
Brendan says one reason the promo-tion has lasted is simply because custo mers appreciate good food.
“Passengers frequently comment on how much they enjoy the promotions and the dishes that come with them,” he says.
“As Hong Kong’s carrier, a taste of home is what we want our passengers to remember when they fly with us,” Bren-dan adds.
The promotion will run until 30 April for all departing flights from Hong Kong, and from 1 May-31 July from selected outports.
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and conduct ac-ceptance testing.”
The team start-ed involving real users early in the design phase to get feedback on the user-friendli-
ness of the product, with more de-tailed user testing planned before production.
Richard says a new training pro-gramme will be developed to en-sure all end users are ready to use the interface after the cutover to PSS in November 2011.
More details can be found on the PSS website in IntraCX.
DIRECT TO YOU: The Home Delivery Service includes cam-eras (top) and gift sets. CURRENT INTERFACE NEW INTERFACE
INFLIGHT FLAVOURS: CPCS Chef Paul Wun with cabin crew Claudia Ma (left) and Karina Hui and a selection of the Yung Kee dishes.
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Vision to succeed onlineMore comprehensive booking engine will help CHL reach ambitious goals
Cathay Holidays Ltd Vision and Missions
VisionOur vision is to be the best online supplier of travel packages and hotel offers for travel from and into Hong Kong and, as such, the best leisure sales channel for Cathay Pacific and Dragonair; and to offer the best expertise in delivering pre-mium travel packages from Hong Kong, inducing brand pref-erence for Cathay Pacific and Dragonair.
MissionsDrive incremental business for Cathay Pacific and Drago-nairGrow Cathay Holidays Limited as a profitable business en-tityDeliver outstanding travel packages and attractive hotel offers for travel from and into Hong KongCreate the best customer experience for buying travel packages and hotel accommodation onlineDevelop sustainable models to grow overseas business into Hong Kong profitablyEmbrace and support Cathay Pacific and Dragonair visions and missionsBuild a winning team
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STAYING FOCUSED: Vincent Li and CHL board member Ronald Lam (back row, third and fourth from right) and the team have a strong vision to follow.
The new Vision and Missions just pub-lished by Cathay Holidays Ltd make it clear where the company’s focus lies.
Stating that it aims to be “the best leisure sales channel for Cathay Pacific and Dragonair”, CHL outlines how it hopes to achieve this – by being the best online supplier of travel packages and hotel offers for travel from and into Hong Kong.
“The online sales side has come on leaps and bounds in the past two years, and no other travel agent in Hong Kong has taken things online to such an extent,” says CHL Managing Director Vincent Li.
“Last year 50% of our business was conducted online and we hope to raise that to 70% in two years’ time,” he says.
All the more impressive is the fact that CHL achieved this using only an interim online solution.
The main focus now is the develop-ment of a more comprehensive book-ing engine that will enable booking, payment and confirmation for travel packages and hotel rooms.
This will dovetail with the launch of CX’s new Passenger Services Systems
through Stay-a-While for customers who may want to plan trips and secure hotel rooms far in advance – this time we’ll leverage our online platform to also offer better tactical rates for sea-sonal sales.”
Hotel deals for inbound travellers will be offered from June and by the end of the year a full range of hotels will be offered through both the Ca-thay Pacific and CHL websites.
in November next year.On the non-air side, Vincent says
that Cathay Holidays already has a clear advantage in terms of its portfo-lio of hotel suppliers.
“This year we intend to build on that and start offering hotel-only stays at competitive rates to individual travel-lers, in addition to full packages,” he says.
“We already offer year-round rates
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DIA
The Dubai team put the gloom of 2009 behind them and set out to welcome 2010 on an optimistic note at a team New Year event.
The theme was “2009 – the good times” with representatives from each department presenting slide shows of the year’s highlights.
Country Manager UAE & Oman Clement Au thanked the staff for their dedication and hard work as he cut the 2010 cake.
Games, lucky draw and a delicious
THA
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Football reaches fever pitchThe Bangkok International Airlines football match was an idea that came from a group of CX mechanics who simply love to play football.
The first match was in March last year and since then another three have been held with teams from CX, KLM and United Airlines all taking part.
The final match was played on 19 December with the CX team, consisting largely of engineers and mechanics, emerging victorious.
Team buoyed by growth in demand
Optimism abounds in Indonesia at the mo-ment, says Country Man-ager Rob Bradshaw, with strong demand in all sec-tors – air travel included.
From a CX perspective this can only be good news, though a raft of challenges – including a resurgent home carrier and a swarm of low-cost carriers – will keep the team on its toes.
The main focus for CX Indonesia in 2010 will be working to restore front-end passenger numbers, and leveraging the buoy-ant passenger and cargo markets to help push up
yield. One challenge the In-
donesian team will always face is dealing with three very different markets – Jakarta, Surabaya and Denpasar.
The capital city is a strong source of business
and leisure travel, while Surabaya has a large traffic base of workers, particularly domestic helpers.
“We need to use that base but diversify to higher yield-ing segments where possible,” says Rob. “However, given that Indonesian helpers are now more numerous than Filipinos in Hong Kong, this will certainly remain an im-portant component of our business.”
Bali flights are mostly inbound traffic, “but with in-creased competition flying direct to and from Europe, we’ll need the Indonesian teams to increase their sup-port,” says Rob.
Cargo forms a vital component of CX Indonesia’s rev-enue, making a significant contribution on each of the three Indonesian routes.
“We ship live and fresh seafood as well as pharmaceuti-cals and general cargo such as furniture,” says Rob.
“However, given the rates out of Hong Kong we will fo-cus more on shipping to Hong Kong and ‘space available’ destinations as well as selling priority products.”
As the cargo market comes back, the CGO team in Ja-karta is getting ready for the reinstatement of the second freighter service this month.
On the passenger side, Rob says there will be a review of frequencies to Jakarta and Surabaya, while extra sec-tors will again be laid on for the annual Lebaran festival holidays in September – “a vital and growing component of our business,” says Rob.
Rob praises the teams in Indonesia for their achieve-ments in 2009 – a year when valuable lessons were learnt, particularly in terms of keeping a cool head in a crisis.
For 2010, in addition to the business focus the team will also take a closer look at how to deliver consistent service excellence at Indonesian airports – as Surabaya did last year – and target opportunities for further developing on-line sales and check-in.
“Also, our OAS results show we have some work to do with ‘people and learning’ – work in this area has already begun,” says Rob.
“All in all, a busy year ahead!” Rob smiles.
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Appreciating passenger loyaltyThe UK and Philippine teams held thank-you events in December for Marco Polo Club
members. The London team (left) met with MPO
members on 17 December at the city’s landmark building The Gherkin.
Over in Manila, the 2009 top flyers gathered for an exclusive cocktail event at the Atrium in the Enderun Colleges in Fort
Bonifacio on 8 December. General Manager CPLP & CIS Paul Loo flew
over from Hong Kong and presented the country’s top flyer for 2009, Diamond Card member Gerry Croarkin, with a four-day/
three-night stay at the Amanpulo resort.
NEwS FOcUS
welcoming the new year on a bright notebuffet ensured a roaring start to the year.
The Cargo team took cargo agent partners on a dhow cruise in
December (pictured) to thank them for their support. The evening was hosted by Clement and UAE Cargo Manager Mukesh Bhatia.
FLYING HIGH: Philippines Country Manager Ed Higgs (left) and Paul Loo (right) with top flyer Gerry Croarkin.
The Chennai team recognised their top-performing agents at a glittering event on 2 December at the Taj Coromandel hotel.
General Manager Middle East, India, Africa & Pakistan Tom Wright opened the evening by thanking the agents for their support, before a lively performance by percussion group Jus Drums with the audience joining in on tambourines.
Top agents get into the rhythm
HK INCENTIVE: The Indo-nesian team launched the “Visit Hong Kong Now” promotion last month, in conjunction with UOB Credit Cards and the Hong Kong Tourism Board, to help spur leisure traffic.
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Long service honoured
Spreading christmas cheerThe Chennai team visited the Seva Samaham Children’s Home on 6 December to present gifts and play games with the children.
The team took the event to heart by scouring the wholesale markets of Chennai for hours beforehand to look for gifts and then working through the night to prepare the goodie bags.
The children welcomed the team with song and dance performances before the games began.
Cargo Services Agent Arun S and Airport Services Agent Steffi Lazarus displayed their own performance skills with a song and dance performance to Where’s the Party Tonight?
Even more popular was Santa, who distributed cake and chocolate, while the organisation was presented with library racks, fans, tube lights and books.
IND
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Passenger Sales Executive Thesa Molino still can’t get over the fact that she was
named the first Betsy Philippines Model Employee during the Manila
team’s Christmas party on 4 December.
Thesa received a Betsy aircraft model,
an overnight stay at a five-star hotel and 10,000 pesos for her achievement.
She was recognised not only for being a role model for the rest of the team but also for being
named “Account Executive of the Year” for the past three years.
“The best thing about my job is having more exposure to the
travel trade which gives me more opportunity to learn about the travel industry and the overall airline business,” she says.
Like all jobs there are challenges, but Thesa takes them in her stride and makes it a point to seek help from her colleagues and supervisors when she encounters difficulties.
“In most cases, I do breathing exercises to calm me down,” Thesa jokes, before recommending not treating work simply as work.
“Trust me, it helps,” she adds.
Thesa’s a model winnerPORT PEOPLE
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WINNING SMILE: Thesa takes work challenges in her stride.
Shallow as it sounds, it was the smart Cathay Pacific uni-form that attracted Singapore Airport Services Supervisor Janet Jothi to join the airline in 2000.
After more than eight years on the job, Janet still wears the CX uniform with pride and ensures that she always pro-vides the airline’s signature service to all the passengers she meets.
“It’s been wonderful working here and I’ve enjoyed every minute with the airline,” says Janet, who has won a number of awards in recognition of her excellent service.
She received a Changi Airport Gold Service Award when she took a female passenger and her three-year-old daugh-ter back to her own flat when she learned they had been given poor accommodation in Singapore.
Last year, Janet was also named a winner at the Betsy Awards for her exemplary service.
Janet says it’s in her nature to care for people, though she admits it’s a challenge to satisfy all the passengers’ needs. But she tries to remain patient and positive.
“When you love what you are doing and treat people the way you want to be treated yourself, it gets easier when dealing with passen-gers,” she says.
Singapore’s shining service star
HELPING OUT: Janet has reaped the rewards of her excellant service attitude.
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workshops, team-building close the yearThe Surabaya and Denpasar teams took part in Vision & Missions workshops in December to brainstorm ideas about how individual staff can contribute to CX’s seven mission statements.
The teams developed lists of short and long-term action items to help articulate the strategy as the team move forward.
On 12 December, the Surabaya team set out on an exciting rafting excursion in Probolingo.
The wet and wild excursion took 1 ½ hours with staff experiencing many heart-stopping moments
including a capsizing and members falling out of the raft.
Denpasar also had a fun teambuilding day out on 10 January at the neighbouring island of Nusa Lembongan in Bali.
The games included “tree and squirrel” with staff paddling a balloon through the air, “fish net” which saw staff
holding hands to form a net to catch some “fish”,
and “the mummy”, with staff getting wrapped up in toilet paper.
The Christmas festivities for the Frankfurt team were extra special for three staff who became the proud owners of long-service pins.
Customer Services/Ticketing Coordinator Andrea Koermendy received a 25-year pin while Customer Services Supervisor Barbara Janezic and Sales Support Officer – Leisure Michael Gerber both received 20-year awards.
Adding character to the cNY paradeThe CX team in Japan took part in a Hong Kong Tourism Board press conference in Osaka on 18 January to announce the participation of the Kansai Yuru-Character All Stars in the Cathay Pacific International Chinese New Year Night Parade on 14 February.
The All Stars consist of 12 mascot/image characters from six different prefectures in the Kansai region with each character representing a different tourism event, attraction or place.
Speaking at the conference, Manager Sales Osaka & Hokkaido Osato Shigemura said: “I am delighted the Kansai tourism ambassadors will be in the Chinese New
Year Night Parade, especially as this year we are also celebrating a significant milestone – 50 years of Cathay Pacfic operations between Osaka and Hong Kong.”
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1. As a tiger, are you looking forward to a roaring year? Absolutely! I might even get my first ever outport posting.
2. Tigers are said to be vivid, lively and engaging. Does that describe you? Yup. I’m quite “tigerous” in that respect.
3. Apparently having a tiger in the house protects against fire and burglary. Has that worked for you?Worked so far! Maybe I can save a few dollars by cancelling my home insurance.
4. What do you like best about Chinese New Year?The omnipresence of my favorite colour red.
5. Anything you dislike about it?It only comes once a year. Giving out red packets should be a year-round practice.
6. Has your three months in Cargo been what you expected? I had high expectations but it went far beyond that.
7. Outside of work, you like the films of Hong Kong direc-tor Wong Kar-wai. What is special about them? The luscious and evocative cinematography paired with the perfect soundtrack.
8. When you have visitors where do you take them for a typical Hong Kong meal? Kowloon City to my favorite Mi-chelin-ranked kitchen. It’s less than HK$25 per head. 9. Adventure or beach holiday? Can I have an adventurous beach holiday? Doesn’t matter as long as I’m on holiday.
10. Essential holiday item? Everything but the BlackBerry.
Oneminute with...
Defeating some of Asia’s strongest teams for a bronze medal finish at the East Asian Games in December for Hong Kong’s male hockey team was a wonderful moment for Flight Purser Alfonso Bibi Cordero.
“We won our match was against the Chinese National Team by 4-3,” Al-fonso says. “It was 3-3 at full time and we scored a golden goal to win. It’s considered the greatest ever victory for Hong Kong hockey and, as it was also my final match, it was a sweet farewell.”
Playing on the same team was HAS Load Controller Arif Ali.
Bronze glow over final gamennnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnn
Those of us who turn pale at the thought of walking up a couple of flights of stairs at Cathay City could learn a valuable lesson from the CX team that won the Run Up Two IFC race.
The four-man team – Peter Langslow (AHQ), Chris Kempis (FOP), Alan Wilson (FOP) and Albert Chan (ENG) – managed to climb the 88 storeys of Central’s iconic building in just 14 minutes and five sec-onds.
Their dash up the internal staircase of Two IFC – six seconds ahead of nearest rival Sino – earned them the overall champion and catego-ry champion honours.
HKSAR Financial Secretary John Tsang was on hand to present the trophies to the CX stair-runners at the event on 24 January, which raised money for the Community Chest.
Three of the CX team got into shape by running up the stairs of the Headland Hotel in the two weeks leading up to the event.
“While they were training I was on holiday!” says Peter. “So it was a good thing that there was one stage much shorter than the others – mine was only 14 storeys compared to Awesome Alan’s 33 and I still nearly barfed at the top!”
Albert says the team made a late decision to take part so didn’t have much time to prepare.
“This was our first time in this race and with runners starting at 30-second intervals it was hard to keep track of our position – we just pushed hard and tried our best,” he says.
Chris says he does a lot of cycling and hill climbing, “but nothing compared to the peak heart rate that I achieved while running up the 2 IFC stairs.
“I took over from Alan after his 33 floors, yet he looked so fresh that I was tempted to let him do my 20 for me as well!” says Chris.
All the runners say they’ll be back again next year with an aim of beating the record – 12 mins 8 seconds – for the ascent.
Three-month old Kenzo Yung has plenty of CX friends to keep him company as he sleeps.
His UK-based travel agent grandmother Meiling Wun is a long-time supporter of CX and has a zoo of CX soft toys collected over the years.
The toys are produced annually by the airline to commemorate the animal of the Chinese zodiac whose year it is, and are presented to travel agent partners in appreciation of their support.
“I’ve been selling Cathay Pacific for more than 20 years now. Every year CX gives me a new soft toy and I now have all the zodiac animals for Kenzo except for the snake, which was simply too large to bring home!” Meiling says.
Baby Kenzo will soon be adding to his collection as the 2010 Year of the Tiger soft toy is already winging its way over to him.
My furry friends and Me
Sabrina Lau,
Assistant to Director
Cargo
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TALL ORDER: Chris, Alan, Peter and Albert against the imposing 88-storey Two IFC (above). Celebrating their victory in the exhausting event (left).
rapid rise to the top!
STONE-AGE MAN: CCD’s David McIntyre follows the leader on a stone sculpture in Guangzhou.
CATHAY BABE: MNL’s Simon Miranda’s son Travis
Isaac starts his CX education early.
WINE AND DINE: The crew of CX721 relax during
dinner in Penang.
GOLDEN MILESTONE: Former CX mechanic Dick Chan celebrates his 94th birthday. Dick worked for the airline in the 1940s.
FINEST VINTAGE: CX wine consultant Roy Moorfield takes a well-earned rest during a recent tasting session.
CLEMENT TIME: Three Clements – Au, Lam and Tam
– meet up at December’s GML dinner.
GREAT WORK!: Philippines Service Champs
celebrate their achievements.
The CX women’s football team is enjoying a brand new look for 2010 – thanks to an unexpected inflight encounter.
In November last year, Robert Earl – the owner of Everton FC, one of Britain’s most famous soccer clubs – was enjoying a trip to Hong Kong from New York in First Class.
He got chatting to Inflight Service Manager Barbara Lewis and the conversation turned to football.
Barbara told Robert about the women’s soccer team in CX, which she captains, and Robert was impressed by what he heard – but the ISM didn’t take it too seriously when the Everton boss said he’d send over some team kits for the girls.
“I thought he was just being polite, so imagine our surprise when we got a package of full Everton kits for all the team,” says Barbara.
The CX players tried on the kits at a recent training session and the photos will be sent to the UK to add a touch of glamour to the Everton’s match programme.
The women’s football team is recruiting more players – email Barbara at CCABHR if interested. No experience is required though you should be reasonably fit.
Team a vision in blue
To enter, visit the online quiz entry form on the CX World site. The deadline is noon on Friday, 5 March.
The QuizThe winner of our first prize this month will receive a two-night stay in a Studio 70 room with breakfast for two at The Opposite House in Beijing.
The Swire Hotels-managed 99-room property takes its name from its location opposite The Village in the entertainment area of Sanlitun.
The Opposite House’s F&B outlets include Mediterranean restaurant
Sureño, Bei which serves north Asian cuisine, contemporary lounge bar Mesh and a casual all-day café.
Leisure facilities include a gym featuring Technogym equipment and a 22-metre stainless steel indoor swimming pool.
Find out more at www.theoppositehouse.com
The second prize winner will receive a two-piece Vinum – Syrah glass set from Riedel Crystal.
Vinum – Syrah glasses are ideal for serving fruity, rich, concentrated oak-aged red wines with balanced acidity and tannins such as syrah and grenache.
Riedel Crystal started in 1756 in Bohemia and has been a family-owned business for 11 generations. It is regarded as a leading international crystal brand. In 1958, Professor Claus Josef Riedel discovered that the shape and size of a wine glass can alter an individual’s perception of alcoholic
beverages and became the first person to design the shape of the glass specifically according to the character of the wine.
Go to www.riedel.com for more information.
PIECE OF CAKE: Andy Daws has a cake with images of his whole project team.
CELEBRATION!: Janet Kuet (front left) marks her birthday with members of her training class.
SNACK TIME: HKG office sample special rice
dumplings prepared by Sarajane Tam.
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For my trip around Nagoya I simply packed comfortable walking shoes, a camera and water. Japan’s fourth largest city offers tradition-al temples and castles alongside modern shopping areas and an iconic TV tower.
First on my must-see list was the Osu-Kan-non Temple.
Located in central Na-goya, a bi-monthly flea market is held in the temple grounds which unfortunate-ly I missed.
Instead I took the opportunity to stroll around the nearby Osu Shopping Arcade which houses small mom-and-pop-style shops selling clothes, traditional crafts, snacks and 100-yen bargain items.
Tired out by the window shopping, I decided to sample misokatsu – a fried pork cutlet with a rich miso-based sauce – which is a speciality of the city.
I arrived just before the long lunchtime queues started and grabbed a seat by the bar overlooking the chefs who were busy preparing the delicious meals.
Just like Paris, Nagoya has a tower soaring over the city – the 180-metre TV Tower – and visitors can go to a skydeck which is 100 me-tres up.
I chose instead to go to Hisaya Odori park where there is a wonderful view of the tower lit up at night.
Next to the tower is the futuristic-looking Oasis 21, a recreational
and commercial complex in the heart of the Sakae shopping
district. The rooftop promenade
is open to the public and I sat by the intriguing “Wa-ter Spaceship” to enjoy the view of the city.
The next day there was just time to visit Nagoya
Castle. The castle is surrounded
by a vast garden area with a small tea house, a lovely col-
lection of paper dolls and a theatre where traditional Japanese Noh plays are performed.
The main building is a concrete replica of the original and there is an interesting muse-um with information about the castle and an observation deck overlooking Nagoya city.
My short trip was over but I felt I managed to jam a lot into it.
Flight Purser Tara Tjhang delves into the many delights of Nagoya
Wonders of Japan
Travel bites
This month’s photo shows a lion cub at the Ukutula Lion Park & Lodge in South Africa and was taken by Second Officer Kelly Todd.
“I went to Johannesburg last summer and Ukutula is about an hour’s drive away,” says Kelly.
“I spent an afternoon at the lodge and the staff allow visitors to interact with the lion cubs as well as some of the older lions,” she adds.
At the game park, visitors can also view antelope species, giraffes, zebras and a wide variety of birds.
Find out more at www.ukutala.com
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
OLD AND NEW: (clockwise from above) Night-time view of the Nagoya TV Tower, Nagoya Castle, the spaceship-shaped Oasis 21 and the delicate paper doll collection at Nagoya Castle.
n Rocking in PenangThe Hard Rock Hotel, Penang is offering CX staff a special
rate of 230 ringgit for a hillview deluxe room including breakfast
for two. The resort hotel has the largest free-form
pool in Penang complete with sand islands, water slides and poolside cabanas.
The prop-erty also has a Lil’ Rock Kids Club, electronic game stations, a spa, gym, two Hard Rock merchandise stores and five restaurants.
More information on Travel Desk.
n Pancake heaven The Cathay Pacific City Guides feature Air Crew Tips from staff around the network.
Flight Attendant Vera Indaryoko recommends dropping by Pancake on the Rocks restaurant when in Sydney.
“The queues at the door will give you an idea of how popular the place is, but it doesn’t take long for the waiters to find you a seat,” she says.
“Best of all, the pancakes taste great, the prices are reasonable and there is a great ambience. Try the strawberry patch pancakes – they will definitely make you go back,” Vera adds.
To submit your own tips please go to www.cathaypacific.com/tips
n Seoul on the run Up to 30,000 runners will be pounding the streets of the Korean capital on 21 March for the Seoul International Marathon.
The 42-kilometre route winds through the main city streets passing major landmarks such as the General Yi Sun-shin statue, the Han River and on to the Seoul Forest in Seongsu-dong before ending at the Olympic Stadium in Jamsil.
Visit http://marathon.donga.com/seoul/international_e1.html
SHOW US YOUR TIPS!CX World welcomes staff travel tips from across the network – email us at CCD#SCT