The Cathay way: pampering frequent flyers
Big revelation: pilots flying a $350-million piece of machinery still like their paper maps. I discovered this on a recent Cathay Pacific Airways delivery flight when I got a rare chance to get up close and personal with the pilots in the cockpit.
I know, I know, no one gets to visit the cockpit anymore. But this was a special occasion. As you may or may not know, every time an airline orders a plane, it has to be picked up from the plant (in this case, the Boeing plant 30 minutes outside Seattle) and delivered to the home airport (Hong Kong). Cathay Pacific invited 50 frequent flyers or sellers (agents who regularly sold their flights) and five journalists to celebrate the delivery of their 50th Boeing 777-300ER.
The journey began with a tour of the massive Boeing plant — the Guinness World Book of Records identifies it as the largest in the world by volume. With a footprint the size of some seven U.S. football fields, it’s a self-contained world, with a fully equipped medical centre, its own fire department, free massages and even a gift shop.
Boeing produces about one of its giant birds every day, and the plant offers a chance to see them in various states of readiness. The gigantic nose cones, mid-sections and tail fins arrive at the work areas via a series of overhead cranes that run along 63 kilometres of ceiling tracks. At various points, employees sit cross-legged high up on the wings to rivet bolts. The plant maintains a fleet of bicycles and bicycle delivery wagons, which take up less space than motorized vehicles, keep employees in shape and don’t give off fumes.
Having completed the tour (which you too can take for $15 per adult), we witness a ribbon-cutting ceremony and hop on board the spanking new wide-body. (Note: You still have to show your passport and go through security, but it beats the crazy airport lineups.) We settle into our business-class seats that convert easily to lie-flat beds and boast 40-centimetre touch screen TVs and noise-cancelling head phones, not to mention linen table-clothes, real silverware, duvet and pillow. Cathay Pacific is known for its service and amenities — it has taken SkyTrax’s World’s Best Airline award four times now.
The journalists manage to snag an invitation to Cathay City at Chek Lap Kok airport, the airline’s Hong Kong home. Built on reclaimed land next to the airport, it takes in about 10 hectares, including office buildings, stores, a staff hotel and fitness centre, bar, beauty counter, museum and a training centre equipped with full-sized models of all of the planes Cathay Pacific flies.
Trainees practice heating food to the right temperature, dealing with common complaints through role play, evacuating a plane that has been plunged into darkness and using firefighting equipment. We watch as they jump into a blow-up emergency slide — hands extended in front to avoid friction burn. Some are clearly nervous, but all manage to land safely.
In-flight services manager Mylene Wong takes us inside the consultation rooms where crew managers get a list of their flight crew, including their language competency, before each flight. Then flight attendants are called in for a 20-minute briefing to review their roster of guests with an eye to their preferences; what section they’re in (economy, business or first class); whether they have frequent flyer status; and if they’ve purchased duty-free in the past. Obviously, the airline’s motto “Service from the heart” involves the use of the head as well.
The same is true of the process of designing an awardwinning airline offering. Toby
Some top customers actually sleep on the seats at the testing facility
Smith, general manager of product for Cathay Pacific, said it takes a good three years to develop a new seat and involves comparing several competing designs. The seats go through several iterations, all of them subject to impact testing, fabric tests and ongoing feedback from everyone involved. In the final stage, some of the airline’s top customers as well as its executives actually sleep on the seats for the night at the testing facility. “Quite a lot of people like the idea that they have contributed to the design of the seat, says Smith. “It gives them bragging rights that we want to talk to them about our nextgeneration product.”
So, to go back to the beginning, why consult a paper map in the cockpit? As airline geeks will no doubt already know, planes follow set routes on their journeys, essentially highways in the sky. All the display panels and dials keep them posted on their flight path, but “the maps give us an overall view,” one of the Cathay Pacific pilots said. “We like to be able to open it up and see where we are in context.”