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I believe you are being unduly harsh on Cathay and do not appreciate that it now operates in an exceptionally difficult political and economic environment. Cathay has no domestic feeder market to rely on. Lufthansa does. Qantas profit driver has been the expansion of its domestic market.

I get the point that CX isn't price competitive within Asia and I certainly don't fly CX as much as I used because of that. However, there is a reason why *A carrier Air Canada selected CX as its Asian partner, and that is because of the reliability of Hong Kong as a hub, and CX as a carrier. No other quality carrier is as well situated geographically to serve Asia Pacific as is CX . It is a rarity to ever hear anything but praise about Hong Kong airports compared to the rest of the world and especially the mainland. CX aircrews are tops and understand service. The foreign markets it serves all have praise for it too. Any change will detract from that.

People do pick CX because they value service, safety, OTP and meals they can eat. My last flight on Air China PEK-BKK in J was negative experience and that is why I gladly paid 40% to take an extra 2 hours more to route through HKG via Cathay. There are still many people who will pay a bit more in Y and J to avoid the garbage experience of a China Eastern or Air China flight, even cost sensitive customers like me.

Lufthansa will have hit the proverbial brick wall this year in its battle to take on the LCCs. It can't change its pension obligations or salary structure any more than it now has. The only option it would have is to move its LCC operations out of Germany to get around the union and pension rules and that is not going to happen. That's why Lufthansa Group isn't the best example to compare to.

I use the word harsh, because you do not acknowledge the politics that CX must live with. I believe that CX suffers discrimination by the powers that be, because those powers have a vested interest in the profitability of the lower quality and unpleasant mainland carriers. They are in no hurry to help a Hong Kong company. I consider any "investment" stake in CX from the mainland no different than that of a club owner who must give the local mafia Don a share of the profits if he wants to keep
operating.

PS. I can't take a grown man wearing a scarf, while indoors, seriously. It's pretentious, and over the top.

@Transpacificflyer - Respectfully disagree on some points:

1. CX's geography is different from QF and LH: CX's base is the 7m HK residents, plus the 12m SZ residents who bus over and a significant chunk of the 108m residents of Guangdong province who bus or ferry.

The better analogy is BA/LHR rather than those two airlines.

2. In any case the KA China network is your effective domestic feeder equivalent.

3. I strongly disagree with the assertion that CX is not favoured by the current administration:

- JQHK got denied HK AOC on an austere reading of English shipping law that CX itself wouldn't have qualified had a grandfather clause not been inserted into our Basic Law

- HKExpress (45% owned by HU) got a massive rap over the knuckles for sloppy safety planning around October last year. It deserved criticism, I won't deny that, but certainly the assertion that HKSARG will back Mainland-supported company doesn't seem to be borne out.

4. HKG is slot constrained (again, like LHR). HKExpress, HK Airlines (largest shareholder HU again) and LCCs would love to have more.

I acknowledge this is a two-edged sword for CX - on one hand it profits as a slot hog, but on the other hand it will affect yield covering all those slots and being unable to reduce unprofitable services.

5. So CX's economics mirror those of BA with its LHR emphasis and constraints. I don't see BA splitting of a LCC either, just turning the mainline into a LCC while retaining the capability to price like a FSC while it can (CX also) (our perceptions of CX service obviously differ).