Cathay plans to cut thousands of jobs and end low-cost Cathay Dragon.
Cathay Pacific Group has announced large job cuts to its workforce in addition to closing down its regional airline, Cathay Dragon.
4,000 cabin crew, 600 pilots, and 700 ground staff and office workers were told they would be made redundant in the company’s US$284 million restructuring.
The cuts amount to 24 percent of its normal headcount.
Patrick Healy, the airline group’s chairman, called the decision “heart-wrenching” and said he was “truly sorry” for the “great distress and anxiety” the decision has caused its staff and their families.
Cathay Dragon is being sacrificed to allow the company to focus on a “world-leading travel brand in Cathay Pacific”, and a single “low-cost leisure brand in HK Express”.
Starting as Dragonair with a single route in 1985 between Hong Kong’s Kai Tak Airport and Kota Kinabalu in Malaysia, the regional airline grew to become a serious competetitor to Cathay Pacific, with both fighting in court for flying rights to and from mainland China.
In 1990, Cathay, together with Citic Pacific and Swire Group, bought an 89 per cent share of Dragonair, before changing its name to Cathay Dragon.
The carrier operated 48 aircraft to 51 destinations, operating most of Cathay’s roughly 370 weekly flights to the mainland.
However, the airline began struggling last year when anti-government protests in Hong Kong led to a sharp reduction in traffic.
The global pandemic sealed the airline’s fate as it could not survive with a further drop in air travel demand.
Although Cathay Pacific will absorb some of Dragon’s old routes, many are expected to now be operated by HK Express – another wholly owned subsidiary of Cathay Pacific.
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