Cathay Pacific is moving with the times, flying in new A350s with biofuel in their tanks and campaigning on LGBTQ+ inclusiveness that is meeting some resistance.
The airline is attracting support and flack over its active promotion of new LGBTQ+ initiatives. It has required all senior staff to attend a one-day seminar on “Diversity and Inclusiveness”. Cathay’s first such seminar, it aimed to raise awareness of personal bias on racism, body shape, social background and LGBTQ+ issues. This is reported to BUZZ by a pilot who doesn’t want to be named. “They are shoving it down our throats. All my colleagues, well, most of them, understand respect and tolerance as I do, but it rankles when it is shoved down your throat.”
Cathay has also begun running a new advertising campaign themed “Move Beyond”. Move beyond the classroom, move beyond adventure and move beyond labels. The latter involved an advertisement on LGBTQ+ showing two gay guys walking on a beach hand in hand. The Airport Authority and the MTR refused to run it. Then both back-tracked after public support became clear.
The airline is also hosting an LGBTQ+ group within the company known as “Fly with Pride”. Swire News says this employee network “aims to ensure the company’s LGBTQ+ staff feel supported, accepted and encouraged to be themselves at work — a strong and important message from the airline”.
On reducing emissions, Cathay is flying into Hong Kong at a rate of one a month new A350-1000s with biofuel in the tanks. These are delivery flights from Toulouse of the aircraft worth about $320 million. They have Rolls-Royce Trent XWB-97 engines producing 97,000 lbs of thrust each for take-off. There is only about 10% biofuel in the tanks and the airline is not yet using biofuel on passenger flights. But it is serious about biofuel’s long-term potential because it can lower costs and carbon emissions. Cathay has bought a stake in an American firm Fulcrum BioEnergy, which is building two plants in Indiana and Nevada that will produce jet fuel and diesel from household waste. The airline has contracted to buy 375 million gallons of biofuel from Fulcrum over 10 years.
The new A350s use 20% less fuel than the B777s that make up the bulk of Cathay’s fleet. A350s are long-range, capable of flying Cathay’s longest route, 8,153 miles Hong Kong to Washington DC. Cathay ordered 20 and they started to arrive monthly in June. Latest available figures show Cathay and its sister airline Cathay Dragon flew 3,127,186 passengers in April. The combined fleet is just under 200 aircraft.
Passenger note: Don’t be fooled into thinking Premium Economy will give you a lot more comfort than Economy as it used to on Cathay in the days when they gave you old business class seats. In the new A350s in Premium Economy we felt just as squashed as in Economy.
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