Cathay Pacific down the pan?
 

If this holds true, this will surely be the biggest tragedy in the HK business industry as CX has always been an admired organization internationally.......

If what holds true?

There is no prediction of CX going the way of Pan Am, just that the risk of insolvency is there and CX has to make difficult preparation to avoid it.

I belive CX will weather the storm and remain a premier carrier.

Well, SQ is also doing as bad as CX, but they didn't say anything about going out of business?!

I don't know how much the Chinese government is willing to help CX but I am pretty sure that the SIN government will tap their enormous reserve to aid their airline. In any case, I really doubt that CX nor SQ is going to go bust (i mean totally closing down). I mean, how am I supposed to fly back from ORD this summer?

I too don't think CX will go bust that easily. I think the purpose of this internal memo was just a scared tactic to make the employees and shareholders to cooperate. Just look at the internal memo about suspending passenger operation in May, it is May now and it is still operating?!

I admire the way that CX handles this crisis. Unlike the American carriers, the company tries to think of any possible ways to save the company without laying off any employees. Also, the company executives also share the pain with the employees by taking a pay cut.

Can anyone tell me what does CX do with the flight attendant trainees? Are they dismissed like SQ did with theirs?

i talked with a KA trainee on a plan a few weeks ago. (she just started work for 2 months, after 2 month's training)
of course she is worrying about lay-off.

she said she will not have work for the next 10 days (seems about 3 flight/month).
but she is working and on call. she dared not to go far away from home, lest she wont have time to pick up her lugguage.

if she goes far away from home, she will carry her lugguage with her.

up till then, her job seems to be secure.
the worst that could happen is no pay vacation.

i think the management believe the SARS crisis is temporary (and i think they are right), what they cannot gauge is how long it would take for the crisie to be over,

While SQ is bleeding, they're estimated to be losing around US$900 000 a day. Not US$5 million. With Singapore being declared SARS free by tomorrow, things will certainly get better.

SQ also always has the government to bail them out too.... but they will not reach that stage. Even then SQ does a fine job throwing billions of dollars overseas, SARS not withstanding!

When is HKG expected to be taken off the WHO travel advisory list? Any prospects in sight?

current thinking is around the end of the month. The WHO criteria are:

- less than 5 new cases per day for several days
- no unnown transmission paths
- no exported cases
- no more than 60 active cases

the first is more or less being met. The second and thrid have been met for some time. The fourth will be reached in ten days or so.

It is indeed very sad for the airline industry Al qeda followed by SARS. Hope they recover to their former glory

Thank you, chrstep!

http://www.info.gov.hk/dh/ap.htm

# active case was 297 as of yesterday,
which included some recovered and under observation cases (about 70).

it was said the definition of recovery adopted in HK was more conservative than other countries.

the govt is trying to persuade WHO not to count those 70 recovered cases.

[This message has been edited by pegasus8228 (edited 05-17-2003).]

Travel to Hong Kong will be quite slow for some time even after SARS is completely eradicated.

SARS will almost certainly never be eradicated - flu hasn't been, West Nile virus hasn't been (and I think that killed more people in NY State alone last year than SARS has in HK).

But the media will lose interest and move on as they do. Then we can all get back to normal and SARS will continue to be just one of the very small background risks in life (as it alwasys has been).