12Dawn has not long broken - Cathay Pacific

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n n n n n n n n n n n n n n n n n n n n n n n n n n n n n n n n n n n n n n n n n n n n n n n n n n n n n n n n n n n n n n n n n n n n n n n n n n n n n n n n n n n n n n n n n n n n n n n n n n n n n n n n n n n n n n n n n n n n n n n n n n n n n n n n n n n n n n The 2013/14 Yum Sing programme has been launched, providing passengers arriving or transiting in Hong Kong with some enticing offers around the city. Yum Sing is on ongoing promotion run by the Marketing Department that helps to differentiate the airline’s inbound tactical products and strengthen CX’s competitiveness as a Hong Kong-based international network carrier. Yum Sing features a variety of coupons selected from around 20 high-quality outlets, including dining, shopping, airport offers and major attractions. Among the outlets offering discounts this year are Jumbo Kingdom, Tai O Lookout, Citygate Outlets and the sky100 viewing platform at Hong Kong’s tallest building. “We have refreshed Yum Sing this year to make it more customer-oriented and comprehensive, with a few more exciting merchants added to the list,” says Jennifer Tsang, Marketing Manager. Visitors can download the coupons from cathaypacific. com/yumsing or dragonair.com / yumsing and present with a valid boarding pass within seven days of arrival in Hong Kong. The promotion runs until 15 April 2014. The typhoon season is approaching fast and CX teams are hard at work fine-tuning plans and procedures in advance of any severe tropical storms. A cross-departmental typhoon preparedness meeting was held on 9 May, with all key teams gathering to ensure that plans are well coordinated and to detail any changes put in place since the big weather event of 2012. Typhoon Vicente ripped through Hong Kong in late July last year, leaving close to 7,000 CX and KA passengers motionless in Hong Kong and thousands more unable to get to HKIA as flights were diverted. CX World spoke to some of the key players to find out what the main considerations will be for any major disruption this summer and what is being done to lessen the impact on customers. Line Operations Safety will always be the factor that drives the decision to suspend operations in a typhoon, says Neil Phillips, Manager Line Operations. “We will complete an operational risk assessment of flight and ground operations – as required under our IATA-audited Safety Management System – and based on the outcome and our experience managing previous events will determine what is an acceptable operating parameter and then decide if we will continue flying or at what point we will discontinue flights.” Commercial considerations are never a factor, “and nor are we influenced by what other airlines are doing,” Neil explains. “If the weather is severe we will stop flying for safety considerations and put everything in place to be ready for when the system passes.” Neil says that it doesn’t necessarily follow that the higher the typhoon warning, the more likely it is that operations will be affected. “It may only be a T3 signal but if there are strong crosswinds from a south-southeasterly direction then operations will be affected,” he says, stressing that typhoon situations will always be unpredictable. IOC While Line Ops makes the decision on whether or not to fly, it’s down to the IOC to put all the pieces of the jigsaw into place. “The most challenging part is recovery because we’ll have a lot of aircraft and crew out of position and it is impossible to simply combine two days’ schedules into one,” says Alex Chan, Manager IOC. After operations out of Hong Kong are cancelled and sixth-freedom flights suspended, IOC will need to get an accurate assessment of the number of people awaiting flights and match these with available resources to know which flights need to be operated. “We also need to look at the capability at HKIA, where there might be issues with parking bay availability or manpower shortages among service providers,” says Alex. Improved coordination with Station Control at HKIA is helping IOC put together a more effective recovery plan. “We will have Hub Control staff sitting in IOC so that we have a good understanding of the situation, and we’ll position our own staff in the Airport Authority’s Integrated Airport Centre (IAC) to ensure better coordination there,” he says. Airports/HKIA Managing customers at airports – in Hong Kong or overseas – is one of the biggest challenges in a typhoon. “In disruptions we need to be mindful of the perception gap between what we do and what customers see,” says General Manager Airport Adrian Harley. “We need to work hard to ensure that gap is as small as possible – so communication is the key, plus making staff visible and accessible.” Adrian says that stopping 6thfreedom passengers coming to Hong Kong is a difficult but sometimes necessary step in order to enable a swifter recovery. “From the AHQ/CCC side we have put in place more effective communication with outports that will help us to manage such situations more effectively.” At the Hong Kong hub, it is also recognised that effective communication is key in the success of the recovery plan execution. “A key development has been to have various ground operations teams – HAS and CPCS, for example – to send representatives into Station Control at HKIA to help with everything from aircraft parking logistics to working on the flight recovery schedule,” says Joseph Chan, Manager Service Delivery – HKIA. The airport teams rely on CCD, ECX and Digital Marketing to get messages out to the travelling public to avoid a situation where people are turning up at the airport for flights that won’t be departing. Getting more customers to use the Manage My Booking system on the CX website has also helped to keep passenger numbers down at airports, while social media tools are playing an increasingly important role in getting messages across to the public. Sing Jet Kerosene ICE Brent
“fanfares” has taken the Hong Kong market by storm since its launch in October last year, with a hit rate of three million in six months, and some offers selling out in less than an hour. Many savvy travellers are now habitually visiting the “fanfares” website every Tuesday at 8am to snap up the latest round of bargains from CX and KA. The “fanfares” website runs 11 offers to regional and long-haul destinations each week. MILESTONE: Marketing manager Julianna Ng, GM Marketing, Loyalty Programmes & CRM Simon Large and Manager Marketing Communications Grace Cheung celebrate the success. Following extensive negotiations, Shanghai International Airport Services (SIAS) was able to ink a landmark ground-handling agreement with Air China. Under the agreement, SIAS – the joint venture formed by HAS, Shanghai International Airport Co Ltd and Shanghai Airport Authority – will provide ramp operations services for all CA flights operating to both Pudong and Hongqiao airports. SIAS put months of preparation in readiness for serving CA from April, purchasing new equipment worth almost RMB 70 million and recruiting hundreds of new staff who needed to be trained to cope with the challenging scale of the operation. Taking on Air China’s flights means SIAS is doubling the number of flights they handle daily at Pudong. At Hongqiao, daily flight handlng is up by more than 60%. The team now handles around 120 and 80 departures respectively at the two airports. “The next milestone will be June 2013, when SIAS will start to provide passenger services at the airport terminals for CA flights,” says SIAS CEO Vincent Li (pictured third from right with senior Air China and SIAS management). On average, 80% of the 1,500 to 2,000 tickets put out each week are sold, with 85% of the purchases made within the first day, and 90% sold online. Weekly site visits average at 130,000 and counting. “fanfares” has covered more than 60 destinations so far, from old favourites such as Singapore and Bangkok, to new destinations like Da Nang and Yangon. The platform offers two travel options – the first type sells fixed pattern, last-minute departures to popular destinations, while the other involves early bird bookings with later departure dates. While the fixed pattern offers the best value, both options represent great value from CX and KA to their home market. “Some offers such as HK$990 to Bangkok, Shanghai and Nagoya are sold out in one to two hours,” said Manager Marketing Communications Grace Cheung. “We are working on the next round of enhancements, so stay tuned for the next phase of development!” Grace added. In the meantime, the “fanfares” team, which involves almost all of the company’s commercial departments, will continue to pay close attention to feedback from the market and introduce improvements. CX now has nine Boeing 747-8Fs in its freighter fleet, following the delivery of B-LJD on 9 May. Four more of the fuel-efficient freighters are due to be delivered in 2013 with the next scheduled to arrive in June. After making its mark on the transpacific routes, the Dash 8 is now also being deployed on the European lanes. On 25 April, CX067/8, operated by the iconic Hong Kong Trader, flew from Hong Kong through Dubai to Frankfurt and Amsterdam, before returning via Dubai to the home hub. The aircraft got a warm welcome in each port it arrived in, with a special greeting at Frankfurt from the airport fire tenders and a visit from a group of cargo agents who won a raffle to tour the aircraft. Tips on securing the best “fanfares” 1. Register for “CXpecials” (cathaypacific.com/ cxpecials) or “KAspecials” (dragonair.com/ kaspecials) to preview the offers in emails sent at around Monday midnight. 2. Login as an Asia Miles member to speed up online booking with pre-filled forms. You’ll also get 500 Asia Miles with each booking. 3. Gather companions and agree on travel criteria first for faster decision-making. Larger groups can assign members to buy two tickets each for quicker processing. 4. Check the expiry date of your passport and other travel documents. If necessary, consider applying for visas for popular destinations like USA and Vietnam in advance. 5. Research new destinations like Yangon, Chiang Mai and Da Nang-- you may have a bigger chance of securing tickets to these wonderful, lesser-known leisure spots! The air-cargo industry has been in a slump for more than two years now – an unprecedented length of time – and there is still no indication that things are about to change for the better. There are few positive signs of the world’s economy getting back on a firmer footing and the simple fact is that cargo demand won’t see any sustained uptick until that happens. Cargo accounts for a significant portion of our overall business at Cathay Pacific, so from our point of view this is not welcome news. We didn’t anticipate the markets being down for such an extended period and we have had to be nimble and flexible in our response, cutting back freighter capacity in line with demand at the same time as trying to develop new markets. Our Cargo teams have been doing a great job in this regard. We have adapted well to the short-term challenges and at the same time have been looking to the future. In the longer-term we are confident that the markets will bounce back, that Mainland China will continue to be major source for both export and import cargo, and that Hong Kong will maintain its role as one of the world’s major international airfreight hubs. That’s why we have been investing in upgrading our freighter fleet as well as building our cargo terminal at HKIA. The terminal is already shaping up to be a very impressive facility. The first stage of operations commenced in February and, thanks to the hard work of the CPSL team and close cooperation with the various third-parties involved, the opening went smoothly. Now the team is getting ready for the big test – handling imports and transhipments for its major customers, CX, Dragonair and Air Hong Kong. Stage two operations will begin on 3 June handling inbound flights from KA, with CX passenger and freighter flights and AHK flights kicking in later. The team will then move on to preparing to move to full operations later in the year. The eyes of the cargo world are going to be focused on our terminal in the coming months, but the combination of a superb facility and a highly professional team means we are going to make it a success. John Slosar 3
Page 4 and 5: 4 The Hong Kong Sevens is still fre
Page 6 and 7: 9 A staff member in DHL’s warehou
Page 8 and 9: Photos by Samuel Lo & Eric Leung Ca
Page 10 and 11: When the call went out for a food-l
Page 12: The Copthorne Orchid Hotel in Penan

12Dawn has not long broken - Cathay Pacific

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