Cathay Group vows more investment on mainland; to expand staff group

Hong Kong-based Cathay Group said it would continue to increase investment in the Chinese mainland, a highly important market, and hire more flight attendants and pilots from the Chinese mainland to meet growing travel demand.

By the end of this year, Cathay Pacific Airways plans to raise the total number of staff members in the Chinese mainland to 4,000 from more than 3,000 currently. In Shenzhen and Guangzhou of Guangdong province, the company has two offices that focus on the technology side of the business and it hopes to soon expand these teams to about 200 people in total.

So far this year, Cathay Group has launched 19 new stops globally from Hong Kong, including four operated by Cathay Pacific in Chinese mainland cities, such as Urumqi in the Xinjiang Uygur autonomous region. In addition, the group's low-cost carrier HK Express launched flights connecting Hong Kong with Yiwu, Zhejiang province; Changzhou, Jiangsu province; and Guiyang, Guizhou province.

Cathay Pacific currently operates four round-trip flights per week connecting Hong Kong with Urumqi, and it hopes to lift the frequency to daily flights if the schedule permits. The business performance in both directions has been good, and many world travelers transfer in Hong Kong before they arrive in Urumqi.

Ronald Lam, chief executive officer of Cathay Group, said the group will consider launching more flights connecting Hong Kong with major cities, and second- and third-tier cities in the Chinese mainland.

Meanwhile, as part of its continued investment in the Chinese mainland, Cathay Pacific officially launched its redesigned flagship lounge at Beijing Capital International Airport on Friday.

This comes as part of the group's over HK$100 billion ($12.79 billion) investment plan into fleet, cabin products, lounges and digital innovations. The investment is for the seven-year period since last year, it said.

Beijing's air travel market has seen rapid growth so far this year, thanks to multiple favorable policies that facilitate personnel exchanges. On Aug 6, the number of international and regional passenger trips handled at Beijing Capital International Airport exceeded 10 million, with the milestone being reached 30 days earlier than last year. The airport is expected to handle 17 million international and regional visits throughout the year, it projected.

"We are incredibly excited to reopen the doors of our latest flagship Beijing lounge. The redesigned lounge complements Cathay Pacific's seven daily return flights between Hong Kong and Beijing this summer," Lam said.

"As a group, we continue to expand our network in the Chinese mainland, operating more than 300 return flights per week to 23 destinations during the summer peak. We remain committed to providing customers with a seamless travel experience through our Hong Kong hub," he said.

Besides Beijing, Cathay Pacific also operates two other lounges in the Chinese mainland — an airport lounge at Shanghai Pudong International Airport, and its first ferry port lounge at the Shekou Cruise Homeport in Shenzhen for intermodal travelers. Next, the airline plans to launch new flagship lounges in Hong Kong and for the first time in New York in the first quarter of next year.

The group recently posted solid interim results. In the first half of this year, it netted a profit of HK$3.7 billion, similar to the same period of last year. The group also announced plans to order 14 new Boeing 777-9 aircraft to support the expansion of its flight network.

Chinese mainland travelers have shown a growing interest in visiting Hong Kong. In the first seven months of this year, Hong Kong received a total of more than 28 million passenger trips. Among which, over 21.3 million visits came from the Chinese mainland, up 10 percent year-on-year, according to the Hong Kong Tourism Board.