Staff Departures Cause Chaos at HK Express
Jackie Reddy October 02, 2017
The low-cost Asian carrier has recently and abruptly canceled flights to and from a number of cities due to the departure of key safety training staff.
Budget carrier HK Express has publicly apologized after staff shortages have caused havoc with its operations, resulting in the cancellation of 18 scheduled flights to various destinations across Asia. The carrier has said that the chaos has been partially caused by the departure of a number of its safety trainers and this, in turn, has had an impact on crew and pilots.
Carol Ng Man-yee, general secretary of Hong Kong’s Cabin Crew Federation, the body representing air crew in the autonomous territory, has said that there is “no way” that the Hong Kong Civil Aviation Department (CAD) would not have been aware of the ongoing problems at the budget carrier. As the body responsible for regulating civil aviation in Hong Kong, the CAD would have had to approve the airline’s request – made earlier this year – to extend the period of validity of staff safety qualifications from 12 months to 13, the South China Morning Post reports.
The process has apparently had a severe impact on the availability of the carrier’s pilots and crew members, thus forcing it to cancel flights to and from Hong Kong, Seoul, Osaka and Nagoya late last month.
Commenting via radio interview, Ng said, “There is no way CAD staff involved in the process were not aware of this.”
Andrew Cowen, the chief executive of HK Express, confirmed to the outlet that the carrier had lost a training manager as well as three key safety trainers in August. This loss of personnel has had a knock-on impact on the carrier’s crew and pilots, who are unable to operate without the correct safety license.
Commenting on the situation, Cheung Shu-wang, chairman of the Staff and Workers Union of Hong Kong Civil Airlines said, “The CAD cannot escape any responsibility here and should reflect and review its mechanism. Hong Kong is one of the top three busiest airports in the world and has a third runway in the works. If these things happen again, it will hit the airport’s reputation. We could lose out to other Pearl River Delta region airports.”
[Photo: Shutterstock]
