Cathay Pacific is unique among airlines in that they have quite a few foreign crew bases (having a couple of foreign bases isn't unusual, but Cathay Pacific has historically had quite a few). While many Cathay Pacific pilots and flight attendants are based in Hong Kong, in the past they've also had crew bases in…
Continue reading: Cathay Pacific Closing Vancouver Crew Base
Share your questions, experiences, and thoughts below.
Will they be given the option to work for Cathay in Hong Kong (presumably after the situation gets better)
This is interesting. I have the same kind of experience on CX, but in my case, Hongkonger crew are generally the biggest "mixed bag" by far.
My CX experience is every other crew (Korean, Indonesian, Taiwanese, Japanese, Malaysian, Filipino, Thai...) is superlative and obviously delivering the experience as designed by CX... and often the Hong Kong crew would not be able to deliver the same. My least polished CX flights also all happened to have Hong Kong ISMs.
Diversity is Cathay's strength, and a part of me can't help but wonder if they're cutting all the other folks to protect employment of HKers who may or may not deserve to stay, just because the government wanted them to hire more locals.
@stratifier: that's how the world works. You can tell that to USCIS and Trump. One of the requirements for foreigners to continue working in the US is to prove that it's the job that no local is eligible to do. It's there to protect US citizens.
@ JB - Even if they are given the option to work in hong kong, but logistically how ? How would someone live in Vancouver your whole life and suddenly move to another country ? Especially those are married with children ? Then whatabout visas and passports ? The closest base to YVR would actually be SFO, but they cant change neither, once again, how would they deal with visas and passports ? Even if they can change bases, they would start at the bottom at the particular base, who would want that ? I was just on JFK-YVR a few weeks ago, the senior purser was telling me that the purser actually worked longer than her in CX, but she wasnt in YVR base as long as the senior purser, so seniority within the base is very important
on one of my recent trips from YVR to HKG the pilot came to greet me and we had a brief chat, he was from Chiliwack. very sad to hear about those layoffs.
I've always had a special feeling about CX YVR over the years. Cancelling the JFK-YVR flight was the first cut that made us realize we were expendable. It eliminated our only F cabin flight to HKG.
By now eliminating the YVR based crew CX
has broken any ties we had left.
Why has CX stocks only declined 14% in three months (29% in a year), but AA is down 47% in just a month?
Flew with the vancouver crew last Dec, and they were absolutely awesome! Wrote a letter of appreciation for them. Sad that it's going to close down!
@DT: The reason for the lower decline rate for Cathay Pacific stocks is probably because they were already hammered by the Hong Kong protests.
@Mark , But CX stock wasn't down that much during the protests either. Down 29% from a year ago (the protests started less than a year ago).