Since the SARS crisis is happening, CX is cancelling many flights, including the long haul flights now.
It is unfortunate, but will it be a good time for CX to speed up the installations of the new Business class, updated first suites, and new decor for economy class? Since the planes are sitting in the ground, it will be nice to have the whole 747 and 340s fleet with new business class before the heavy summer seasons.
What do you think?
Carfield
Plato90s
Apr 5, 03, 5:27 am
A good idea based on efficiency.
Not so good when you consider that CX's profit/loss statement will take a huge hit from SARS, and increasing capital outlay by doing the refits may not be what management wants to do this quarter.
cx_mpo
Apr 5, 03, 5:47 am
The cost of the new J class product has been budgeted for and capital allocated for the product installation.
CX has "one of the" strongest balance sheet in the airline industry so it is able to withstand the current double crisis that we are seeing - the war and SARS.
I am of firm belief that this SARS problem has been overacted by the media and when you look at the statistics, it is not all that alarming - so what is the problem. Hong Kong people on a nerve breaking alert - a total panic without any substance and then the media reports such sensational news that make more people nervous.
Just read the following and then decide for yourself:
WHAT THE HK MEDIA IS NOT TELLING YOU ABOUT THE VIRUS
Pneumonia in Hong Kong
In Hong Kong the "normal" annual number of cases of pneumonia is in the
range 15,000 - 25,000
(Source: Hong Kong Medical Association
http://www.hkma.org/english/care/SARS-report-27Mar03-Eng.ppt )
The normal number of deaths due to pneumonia in Hong Kong is in the range 2,000-3,000
(Source: HK Government Health Department Annual Report at http://www.info.gov.hk/dh/publicat/index.htm )
The vast majority of these deaths from pneumonia occur amongst the elderly. For example, in year 2000 there were 3,041 deaths from pneumonia, of which only 75 were in people age 44 or lower.(Source: Health Department report, ibid)
Influenza and pneumonia and similar viruses in other places. In the year 2000, 65,313 people in the USA died from influenza or pneumonia,of whom only 6,756 were age under 65.
(Source: Centre for Disease Control mortality statistics at: http://webapp.cdc.gov/cgi-bin/broker.exe )
This Outbreak of SARS
In comparison, there have been just 16 people who have died with symptoms of the disease in Hong Kong as of today's date - first week of April, 2003.
Almost all of the deaths where the age has been reported have been 60+, with at least 2 being 80+.
Of the identified cases, 84 have now been discharged, and a further 67 are being treated in Intensive Care Units.
Details of those dying
A total of 16 deaths have been reported to date in HK. As far as I can gather from the released data this include the following:
1. The original doctor from China
2. The businessman airlifted from Hanoi
3. Undefined (at Pamela Youde Eastern Hospital)
4. A patient already in Prince of Wales Hospital because he/she had severe heart disease
5. A patient already in PWH with very advanced severe liver disease
6-8. Undefined
9. An elderly man with blood disease
10. A middle-aged man with hepatitis
11. Undefined
12. An 83 year old man with a history of heart disease
13. undefined
14. A 79-year-old man with a history of heart disease
15. A 62-year-old man who was very ill when admitted
16. A 83-year-old man
(Source: Department of Health press releases)
Analysis
There are a three questions that need to be addressed in assessing the relative risk from SARS:
1. How easy is it to catch (in the sense of developing symptoms) this pneumonia?
2. If you do catch it, what is the chance of being seriously ill (which I will define as in Intensive Care) or dying from it?
3. How do these risks compare with others that are accepted as a "normal" or" acceptable" level of risk in living in Hong Kong or elsewhere?
1. How easy is it to catch?
From the data on the Amoy Gardens case it appears that about one in five to one in eight of the people in that building have shown some symptoms. (This is based on press reports of 200+ units in the affected building and a Hong Kong average of about five people per household.)
This makes it similar to common colds or influenza, but much easier to catch than "typical" pneumonia. It is clearly not something that is caught automatically just by being in
the same building / bus / environment as an infected person (as 35,000 people at last weekends HK Sevens, or the many attending the recent Jockey Club meetings have seen).
There does not yet seem to be any published data on whether prior immunity to other similar viruses offers any protection against SARS, although initial research shows it to be in the same family as measles and mumps. However, it is clear that most people who come in contact with the virus do not develop symptoms of pneumonia.
2. Who dies from it?
Only about 10-12% of the people who develop symptoms are ill enough to require intensive care. It appears that the remaining 88-90% recover sufficiently to be discharged within about two weeks. The mortality rate is around 2%. This is dramatically lower than the mortality rate for "typical" pneumonia in Hong Kong, which is around 12%.
Beyond the first three cases where the disease was essentially unknown and there was no defined treatment regime, there is no data to shown that otherwise healthy individuals have died from SARS. cannot find published data on the people in 10-12% of people who require Intensive Care, but it would seem reasonable to postulate that these are people who have other health problems or who are elderly.
3. How high is the risk relative to others?
a) Death
Since SARS was first publicized (on 11 March) - i.e. in 21 days - there have been 16 deaths from "atypical" pneumonia.
In the same period the expected number of deaths in HK from "typical" pneumonia is about 150.
In that same period, over 100 people in HK would be expected to die from accidental injury or poisoning (of which about 11 would be from transport accidents, and a further 11 from accidental poisoning).
b) Serious Illness
There are 67 SARS sufferers in Intensive Care.
In year 2000 there were the following number of cases of these serious diseases in HK:
Source for all illness/mortality data: Health Department Annual Report 2000/2001.
Even ignoring the age effect, SARS is not high on the list of infectious diseases.
Overall Conclusion
The original writer believes: For a person of working age in good health SARS is not a cause for serious concern. Please can we stop panicking and go back to living normally?
This is not an attempt to replace the advice of doctors with the advice of amateurs.
The HK has chosen not to supply the public with all the information available. I don't know why. All we are doing is putting all the facts before you. Make your own decision.
Stay calm and stay healthy!
Nury
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christep
Apr 5, 03, 9:22 am
I am flattered to see my words being quoted in this forum - the above cx_mpo article is more or less verbatim from my website, which is in turn a copy of a memo which I wrote for my multinational employer last week.
I have now uploaded an updated version with the latest figures at http://home.so-net.com.hk/~pns/
I was also somewhat surprised to see them this morning on the letters page of the SCMP as "Name & Address supplied".
cx_mpo - are you Nury Vittachi, or are you just quoting him? If you are he, could you please email me at the address in my profile? If not could you tell me where Nury wrote this. Thanks.
[This message has been edited by christep (edited 04-05-2003).]
tedhl
Apr 5, 03, 1:13 pm
thanks so much christep for putting this together !! you know what, this is what I have been thinking about doing for the past couple of weeks...I have been getting quite irritated or mad while discussing with others about this these days, so I really want to put the facts together and let everyone know the truth...thanks christep for your great efforts !! http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/smile.gif
as a local HK Chinese, I must say I am quite sad to see what have happened...I mean, the whole HK panicking and basically the HK people / media destroying the HK economy...for me, life is usual...I keep on doing my weekly flying no matter how dangerous others think it is...I mean, I agree that we should all take precautions, should all be careful about this...but, it just doesn't make sense at all to panic so much and to interrupt our daily lives so much just because of this...
B-HXB
Apr 5, 03, 4:08 pm
<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2">Originally posted by Carfield:
Since the SARS crisis is happening, CX is cancelling many flights, including the long haul flights now.
It is unfortunate, but will it be a good time for CX to speed up the installations of the new Business class, updated first suites, and new decor for economy class? Since the planes are sitting in the ground, it will be nice to have the whole 747 and 340s fleet with new business class before the heavy summer seasons. </font>
Err... back to the topic... http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/smile.gif
That would be a GREAT idea. How many planes are still scheduled for retrofitting? About 10 747-400s and 3 A340-300s?
Speaking of the new economy class... does anyone know how this is progressing - which aircraft have them? And what features do the new seats have? Are they like the ones on the A340-600 - with more cushioning and larger PTVs?
jkc22
Apr 5, 03, 5:22 pm
<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2">Originally posted by B-HXB:
...That would be a GREAT idea. How many planes are still scheduled for retrofitting? About 10 747-400s and 3 A340-300s?...</font>
Great, I can't wait to see CX get some of the B744 servicing SFO-HKG an updated interior in J.
Althought I am not a big fan of the new J seats, the old blue interior could surely use some update. Somehow, lately the upper deck seemed gloomier than usual. The dark blue seats certainly didn't help much to alleviate the darkness.
Could anyone confirm, but it seems that the cabin lighting or the walls are brighter in the new J cabin after the retrofit?
I believe the new J is scheduled for all flights to/from SFO starting August 2003.
[This message has been edited by jkc22 (edited 04-05-2003).]
jakob
Apr 6, 03, 1:40 am
i know this is off topic but one of the replies in this thread said CX had one of the strongest balance sheets in the industry... so just exactly how much cash do they have?
It would be nice, but I don't think it's practical, because:
1. Refitting planes take time. You can't take it to a shop in a morning and get it back that afternoon. If the war finishes tomorrow, and demand jumps, you don't want to be short when you need to recoup the loss you'd during wartime. With the war, you don't really know when it's be over until it's over.
2. Probably most importantly, these refitting are probably scheduled. This means various equipment and resources are probably unavailable right now. So while the planes may be ready/idle, the seat suppliers (for instance) may not be ready. If you rush these suppliers along, it will only blow out your original budget, assuming it can be done in the first place. Blowing out budgets probably isn't a good thing to do at the best of times.
3. As to SARS, I think people might have over-reacted a bit. OK, I don't live in HK, but I'd for a long time. For HK people, OK, they may over-react, but they also over-react if they can see a little bargain. Have a little sale when it's over, and things should pick up easily. As to people flying to HK, I don't think it's a big deal. Once the governments and WHO remove their advice, I think/hope things will improve.
I think you need to keep your resources as fluid as possible under today's situation.