Originally Posted by Cathay Dragon 666

Cathay is the victim of their own failures and the fierce competition from mainland airlines. Own failures such as fuel hedges that make no sense, not aggressively going after the China market (could be limited by Beijing so not really their fault), offended and pushed out their most loyal fliers that were willing to pay premium prices with them to keep status, branding itself as luxury airline but cuts services, etc. However, Cathay is also in a tough spot when mainland airlines are selling all cabins are ridiculously low prices.

One would think Cathay wants to secure their home turf, Hong Kong, by offering competitive prices in and out of Hong Kong. But rather, in reality, if departure/destination is Hong Kong it is usually the most expensive. Some people claimed this is because Cathay has strong yields for Hong Kong traffic so there's no pressure to deflate prices. However, on the last 3 business trips I fly with Cathay in and out of Hong Kong, the air craft is pretty empty, a quick glare back to the Y class shows it to be virtually deserted. It could be the exception, and the 6 days I was traveling were happen to be low-yield days, but I don't ever remember seeing a situation like this in my 30 years of flying with Cathay.

Really to win people back is simple: increase product and service quality, reasonable fares, and attractive FFP. But again and again airlines decided to go price war and the industry seems to be like a race to LCC.