bodyType

customContents

entityId

entityUuid

articlePageQuery

filter

article

articleBaseAdvertisingInfoArticle

articleListArticle

articleSeoArticle

helpersCheckIsPostiesArticle

hooksArticleAcknowledgementGateOverlayArticle

hooksTrackPageViewArticle

hooksContentInterestArticle

articleLinkingDataContent

articleSchemaContent

liveArticle

advertZone

sentiment

contentLock

topics

types

sections

moreOnThisArticles

urlAlias

commentCount

sponsorType

authorLocations

authors

paywallTypes

corrections

displaySlideShow

multimediaEmbed

printHeadline

seriesContainer

socialHeadline

headline

flag

firstTopic

glossary

flattenTypeIds

publishedDate

additionalInfoBoxes

images

image

relatedLinks

relatedNewsletters

__typename

createdDate

sponsor

factSheets

series

disableOffPlatformContent

published

updatedDate

summary

subHeadline

body

keywords

copyrighted

customTimezone

liveContents

Jo Bowman

Cathay Pacific yesterday chartered 10 mainland planes and their crews as industrial action by its own pilots hit almost half of the day's flights.

As Typhoon Utor approached last night and threatened to cause further disruptions, Cathay said the chartered jets - to be flown by mainland pilots - would be kept at Chek Lap Kok until they were needed. Seven have arrived and three are expected tomorrow.

By about 7pm, 55 Cathay flights had been delayed by 15 minutes or more.

Cathay also announced that the typhoon had forced the cancellation of at least 20 flights later in the evening.

The passengers worst affected by delays were those on flight CX104 from Adelaide, which was almost four hours late when it landed shortly after midnight yesterday.

Cathay corporate development director Tony Tyler said the planes had been chartered with the onset of Typhoon Utor in mind. It is believed to cost about $8 million a month to lease a plane and its crew.

Mr Tyler said the typhoon's effects would be compounded by the industrial action and the pilots' union's 'apparent unwillingness' to help the airline recover from weather-related disruptions.

'Cathay Pacific has promised to make every effort to provide a reliable service and keep our passengers moving. The rapid approach of Typhoon Utor and the ongoing union dispute mean additional capacity will be of value to us,' he said.

Four of the chartered planes are from China Southwest. A China Southwest plane crashed into a field in February 1999 killing all 61 people on board.

Two of the others are from Air China, which has had two near-misses in the past three years. One near-miss, in 1999, involved a pilot pointing to the wrong place on a map, sending his jumbo jet into the path of a Korean Air plane, which had to change course to avoid it. The same year, an Air China cargo jet took a wrong turning after landing in Chicago, narrowly missing a packed passenger flight that was taking off.

A plane belonging to a third airline, China Eastern, which is lending one aircraft to Cathay, made an emergency landing in Shanghai on Monday when a cockpit window fragmented on the way from Shijiazhuang to Guangzhou.

The other airlines leasing planes to Cathay - China Northwest and China Northern, have a clear safety record over the past three years.

Mr Tyler said the planes and their crews all met international and Hong Kong regulatory standards, and 'we wouldn't be chartering them if we weren't satisfied with the standards of the aircraft and crew. We hope that our passengers will understand that if Cathay Pacific can't provide aircraft and crew, then at least we're providing an alternative'.

However, a Cathay pilot said: 'One of the reasons why passengers fly with us is because they feel safe, they get good service from flight attendants and they're well treated at the check-in counters. You're not going to get many airlines with the safety record of Cathay Pacific. I have the greatest respect and admiration for the job my colleagues are doing on the mainland in extremely difficult circumstances.

'But if people wanted to fly on an airline apart from Cathay, they would have booked on an airline apart from Cathay. The Hong Kong public is extremely well-informed - they will draw their own conclusions.'

The Aircrew Officers' Association, which represents most of Cathay's 1,500 pilots, said there had been no change to the industrial action; the increase in delays could be due to the fact that more members had received their instructions from the union about how to behave during the campaign. 'We said from day one that this would take some time and even today not all of our members will have the paperwork that was sent out,' said general secretary John Findlay.

'The simple fact is that our members will go to work, report at the required time, they will go through their paperwork and they will operate.

'The flying public will be gratified to know that if there is any bad weather around this time of year, they'll be flying with the best pilots in the region. We will now wait to see whether Cathay is prepared to come back to the negotiating table.'

In an open letter to both Cathay and the pilots yesterday, Travel Industry Council chairman Ronnie Yuen Ka-chai said the industrial action threatened to severely damage the tourist trade.



10 aircraft leased as pilots' action hits almost half of flights and typhoon causes cancellations