Cathay Pacific sent an email to Vancouver-based cabin-crew staff on March 5 that said that the company intends to close its base in Vancouver. The closure affects 147 unionized cabin-crew employees plus two additional non-union workers. The base will close on June 26, spokeswoman Sarra Gau told Business in Vancouver.
Gau confirmed that Cathay Pacific bases pilots across Canada, including in Vancouver but could not provide a specific number. BIV had heard that Cathay Pacific based "dozens" of pilots in the city.
"They are not impacted by this particular decision," Gau said.
The email to the cabin crew, sent by Jeanette Mao, the airline's general manager of the in-flight service department, read: "The commercial viability of the Vancouver cabin crew base has been a concern to us for some time. Starting from early 2019, we have been engaging with your union – CUPE – to discuss the long term sustainability of the base. Unfortunately we have been unable to reach any agreement."
Her email went on to note: "With the current business environment and changes to our operations globally and to Vancouver, the decision could not be postponed further. I am afraid we have now reached the point where we can no longer foresee circumstances in which it is possible for us to sustain this way of operating the base."
She went on to say that she appreciates that "this will come as disappointing and unsettling news for all of you" and she alerted the cabin crew that someone would be available in Vancouver to answer questions.
The email did not mention the coronavirus COVID-19, which is rapidly spreading across the globe, making travellers skittish and pummelling airline companies' share prices.
Cathay Pacific announced in September that, as of March 27, it will stop flying non-stop between Vancouver and John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York. It then ended that route early and no more flights on that route are planned. The airline explained its rationale for ending the route in an email to BIV at the time. It said that the changes were "to ensure the most efficient aircraft deployment and scheduling."
The Hong Kong-based carrier has flown out of its home base to Vancouver since 1983 and it added flights between Vancouver and New York in 1996. At the time, the route carried the airline’s only flights to the Big Apple.
Cathay Pacific then launched non-stop flights between Hong Kong and New York in 2004, and had been operating 21 flights per week on that route late last year. Gau said that with the coronavirus fears and people cancelling flights, some of those weekly non-stop flights between Hong Kong and New York have been cancelled. She did not say how many flights per week the airline is flying on that route, calling the situation "dynamic."
