Originally Posted by
Kachjc
Cathay in my opinion is probably the worst major airline in terms of fleet planning.
The 747 should have been retired a year ago- all of them,and the number of aircraft ordered is barely enough to replace what they are going to retire
To be fair a few things caused them to panic and in retrospect, caused them to make bad decisions.
1) SARS - things were going great until this happened. Complete panic mode.
2) When Cross-strait happened between Taiwan and China we saw CX, incorrectly, predicted that Taipei/Hong Kong traffic will drop significantly. So in another panic, they postponed their schedule delivery of 773ERs.
3) 2010 boom
I'm sure there are other factors but at the time those decisions made sense, just that well, CX sort of missed the gravy train when things rebounded. Those 747s are significantly cutting into their profits that they wish could be provided by more fuel efficient 773ERs