Cathay Pacific Airways continues to experience a very high rate of pilot resignations, and may improve allowances and benefits to appease crew who took deep pay cuts to help Hong Kong’s flag carrier navigate its way through the city’s Covid-19 crisis.
“We still have resignation rates at much higher levels than we’ve historically had,” chief operations and service delivery officer Greg Hughes said at a town hall meeting for Cathay staff watched online by Bloomberg News. “It would also be an incorrect statement for me to make that COS18 is not one of the reasons.
Cathay’s workforce has shrunk almost 40% during the pandemic as Hong Kong’s stringent travel curbs and effectively closed border saw the airline burning cash, forcing it to drastically scale back staff and operations. In addition to redundancies, those who retired or left to join other airlines or industries, hundreds of Cathay employees departed after being caught up in the government’s aggressive clampdown on infections.