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Hong Kong Airlines cutting flight crews as HK downturn bites
Having significantly cut capacity, Hong Kong Airlines now plans to do the same to its expat pilots.
The airline could soon offer pilots voluntary leave without an obligation to repay training costs and salary advances.
Like Cathay Pacific, the airline has cut capacity on multiple routes as the months-long pro-democracy protests continue in Hong Kong.
HK Airlines is now mulling an official voluntary separation scheme to remove pilots, flight attendants, and some other staff from the payroll, an airline official said.
Its expat pilots are mostly from Europe with some from Southeast Asia.
It has already offered voluntary redundancy to some pilots after it scrapped flights to Cairns, Gold Coast, Auckland, and Fuzhou.
Now US services are being scaled back.
After halting the daily Airbus A350-900 service to San Francisco, HK Airlines will soon downgrade its daily Los Angeles service to five flights a week.
"As the strength of the protests in Hong Kong that started in May gained momentum, market demand weakened," the unnamed official told Aviation International News.
"It would not be a surprise should HKA be reduced to a regional carrier due to the highly competitive market."
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Editor for TravelMole North America and Asia pacific regions. Ray is a highly experienced (15+ years) skilled journalist and editor predominantly in travel, hospitality and lifestyle working with a huge number of major market-leading brands. He has also cover in-depth news, interviews and features in general business, finance, tech and geopolitical issues for a select few major news outlets and publishers.
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