The CEO of Cathay Pacific has claimed it will take Gulf carriers at least a “generation” to catch up with the levels of in-flight service offered by the Hong Kong-based carrier.“They [Gulf carriers] win lots of awards, but you know, in 2009 Cathay Pacific was the airline of the year from [independent aviation watchdog] Skytrax. In the last seven or eight years we have won that twice,” Tony Tyler told Arabian Business on Monday.
“It is pretty easy to win the awards from magazines, which are very largely driven by advertising budgets. We are never going to win an award which is based on an advertising budget because we don’t have a very big advertising budget,” he added.
Cathay Pacific, which was founded in 1946, last year flew to 115 destinations in 36 countries. However in 2008 it lost $1bn, due in part to rocketing fuel prices. Tyler added: “We spread our brand more by way of our product… On the hard product side, we are only nine [seats] abreast on our 777s. Gulf carriers tend to go ten abreast. It makes a huge difference in economy class. But really it is the soft product that other airlines will take a generation to develop, if they’re lucky.”
When asked how Cathay compared to leading Gulf carriers, Tyler claimed that the Cathay “culture” was unparalleled.
“I do believe that while it is possible to copy airlines’ hard product, the quality of the human service that our cabin crew give is unrivalled by any airline… And that is not something you can easily copy. It is something that is built up over years of development and management and training. It is culture building, if you like, and the particular flavour of the Cathay Pacific service is something that is unique and I believe it is better.”
Tyler did say that the Gulf carriers offered stiff competition to the whole airline industry.
Asked if he thought Gulf carriers paid the same prices for fuel as non-Gulf carriers, he said: “They always say they do. So I suppose I have to take their word for it… That is what they say. But some carriers tanker fuel out of places that we tanker fuel into, but perhaps they just have a different way of looking at it than we do.”
He added that Cathay was not overly concerned by the threat posed to its traffic volumes by Gulf carriers.
“The fact is that between the major origins and destinations that we serve, we still offer a greatly superior product in terms of schedule and frequency, not to mention the onboard product. So we are certainly not an airline who feels our very livelihood is being threatened by the Gulf carriers,” he said.
The full interview will appear in the next issue of Arabian Business.
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