Cathay Putonghua charm offensive takes off

Cathay Pacific will hire cabin crew from the mainland next month with the aim of having Putonghua speakers on all flights across the border, says chief executive Ronald Lam Siu-por.

The move comes after three flight attendants were accused of discriminating against non-English-speaking passengers last month. The three were sacked.

In a letter to staff yesterday, Lam said the airline will extend its Putonghua language coverage by adding more Putonghua-speaking crew on mainland flights initially and then on all flights later.

"Widening our crew's Putonghua coverage is a key objective under this initiative, given the increasing proportion of our customers who speak Putonghua," Lam said.

"This will help ensure that every mainland flight will have consistent Putonghua in-flight announcements from August."

He said the crew's name tags will show all the languages they speak. Currently, the name tags show their names, job titles and major languages they speak.

Lam also said a new monthly allowance will be given to those who can speak more than one Asian language.

The flagship carrier will begin its recruitment of mainland crew next month, Lam said, adding it has always been its intention to recruit mainland flight attendants after the pandemic as the airline has been getting more Putonghua-speaking customers.

"This will further increase Putonghua language coverage and diversity among our crew community," Lam said.

"As an international airline, our cabin crew community will remain predominantly Hong Kong employees, augmented by crew from outside of Hong Kong recruited in line with our overall customer profile."

Local cabin crew members will receive additional training from next month based on the airline's "customer-centric culture" and values such as being thoughtful and progressive with a can-do attitude, Lam said.

"This aims to refresh our crew with the approach and skills necessary to provide our caring service consistently to all customers, as well as reinforce our inclusive culture," he said.

"This new recurrent service culture training for our cabin crew is in addition to existing service culture training provided during induction, promotion and new service rollouts."

The training will be expanded to other customer-facing teams later, Lam said.

Cathay, one of the hardest-hit airlines during the pandemic, has overcome many challenges and aims to rebuild Hong Kong as an international aviation hub, Lam said.

"Our ultimate goal is to become one of the world's greatest service brands - one that our people and customers can be truly proud of," he said.

"We will no doubt face many challenges in the process, but with such a passionate and professional team, I have every confidence that we will be able to achieve this goal together."

Law Cheung-kwok, a senior adviser at Chinese University's Aviation Policy and Research Center, said Cathay's aim to expand Putonghua coverage is appropriate as many of the airline's customers are mainland travelers.

"The airline must correct its problem and hope to be forgiven by mainland passengers ... so its business can resume," Law said.

"In the long term, there should be staff among in-flight cabin crew and ground crew at the airport who have a good command of Putonghua and can communicate with mainland passengers."

Three Cathay female flight attendants were sacked last month after a passenger accused them on mainland social media of discriminating against non-English speakers on a Chengdu flight to Hong Kong.

In a voice recording, the three chat in the pantry and laugh at a passenger who could not ask them for a blanket in English. They are heard mocking the passenger for saying "carpet" instead of "blanket."

wallis.wang@singtaonewscorp.com