Cathay Pacific Outlines Recovery Plan

At a press conference held this afternoon to discuss the volcanic ash situation over Europe as well as Cathay Pacific's flights into the region, Cathay Pacific's Director Service Delivery, Mr. Ivan Chu said, "As and when services resume, all airlines around the world will be competing for landing slots at airports, and airspace and airports are going to be horribly congested ... The backlog is going to take time to clear. We are appealing to passengers who have reservations on our flights to Europe for non-essential travel to give them up to free up seats."

Cathay Pacific today cancelled its seven flights to Europe – four to London, and one each to Paris, Amsterdam and Frankfurt. It has though upgraded the Rome service from an A340 to a Boeing 747-400, providing an extra 96 seats.

Mr Chu said, "We are in the planning stage for recovery. We have stopped connecting passengers from coming to Hong Kong, we are hoping to add extra sectors where possible, upgrading to larger aircraft where we can on critical routes, appealing to passengers on non-essential flights to postpone their travel and working out a priority system for when services begin to return to normal ... Once services begin returning to normal, we intend to give priority to students returning to the UK to sit public examinations and unaccompanied minors, i.e. Children under 12."

 To help clear the backlog, Cathay Pacific said it will not be taking new bookings on flights to Europe for departures on or before 10 May.

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