8,500 Job Loss for Cathay Pacific

Cathay Pacific announces the closure of regional airline and job losses of 8,500 staff

Hong Kong’s Cathay Pacific Airways have announced it is to make job cuts of 8,500 with the closure of its regional airline, Cathay Dragon.

Hong Kong airline Cathay Pacific Airways has announced it will cut 8,500 jobs and is closing its regional airline in the backlash of the global pandemic that has so heavily impacted the industry.

Around 5,300 employees based in Hong Kong and a further 600 throughout the company are expected to face redundancy. 2,600 unfilled positions will also be cut, Cathay Pacific said in a statement.

The company will shut down Cathay Dragon, its regional airline. It will seek regulatory approval for most of the routes to be operated by Cathay Pacific and its budget airlines subsidiary HK Express.

Cathay Pacific chief executive Augustus Tang said in a statement that the restructuring is aimed at reducing Cathay Pacific’s cash burn to 500 million Hong Kong dollars (about £50 million) a month, from about 1.5 billion Hong Kong dollars (£149 million) to 2 billion Hong Kong dollars (£199 million) currently:

“The global pandemic continues to have a devastating impact on aviation and the hard truth is we must fundamentally restructure the group to survive,” Mr Tang said.
“We have to do this to protect as many jobs as possible, and meet our responsibilities to the Hong Kong aviation hub and our customers.”

The restructuring plan will cost about 2.2 billion Hong Kong dollars (£219 million), the company said.

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