Hong Kong | Third pilot leaves Cathay amid tumult tied to protests

A third pilot left Cathay Pacific Airways Ltd. amid Hong Kong’s anti-Beijing protests, with the departure related to comments he made about a rally at the city’s airport last month.

The pilot is no longer with Cathay, a spokeswoman for the Hong Kong-based airline said yesterday, without elaborating or disclosing whether he resigned or was fired. The pilot made comments about the protest to passengers on a flight to the city from Tokyo, Hong Kong Economic Journal said, without saying where it got the information.

Last week, Cathay said it fired two pilots in relation to the protests.

Cathay also said yesterday that it expects “significant impact” on its revenue from August and beyond as travel demand gets affected by the months-long protests in Hong Kong.

Both business and leisure travel into Hong Kong has “weakened substantially” and traffic from Hong Kong has started to soften, especially on short-haul routes to such countries as China and South Korea, Cathay Chief Customer Officer Ronald Lam said in an emailed statement yesterday. Demand on China routes fell 2.8% in July, the biggest decline since February.

Cathay has been going through a volatile month that led to the naming a new chief executive officer Friday, a week after China imposed a swathe of demands on the airline for its workers’ participation in the protests. Chinese state-owned firms have also started boycotting the airline, raising further concerns that the demonstrations in Hong Kong could undermine the company’s efforts to turnaround its business.

Overall traffic, measured by revenue earned per kilometer, rose 6.7% in July, Cathay said. The airline filled 86.1% of its seats last month, compared with 86.7% in the same month last year.

Cathay said on Aug. 7 that inbound traffic to Hong Kong fell in July due to the protests and forwarding bookings declined by a “double digit” percentage.

Earlier this month, China’s civil aviation authorities barred Cathay staff who took part in or supported Hong Kong’s protests from flying to the mainland and demanded Cathay provide a plan for improving flight safety and security. On Thursday, the regulator said the carrier had complied with its demands.

Most of Cathay’s 32,800 workers are based in Hong Kong and its hub is the airport that had become a key site for the protesters. Last week, the Hong Kong airport was shut down as demonstrators occupied key buildings, forcing Cathay to cancel hundreds of flights. DB/Bloomberg