Cathay to hire 300 flight attendants for domestic flights

Cathay Pacific is planning to hire 300 flight attendants from the mainland this year, said chief executive Ronald Lam Siu-por, and they will serve on domestic flights to mainland cities.

During his trip to Henan and Shaanxi as part of the Belt and Road Initiative visiting delegation, Lam told reporters that the flagship carrier plans to hire cabin crew from all over China and expects to recruit about 200 to 300 people starting next month.

"We are actually hiring people from all over China, but we hope they can serve flights that are departing from Hong Kong," he said, adding that the airline plans to further expand the recruitments in the coming years.

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

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."

Cathay said in a letter to staff earlier last week, the airline will extend its Putonghua language coverage by adding more Putonghua-speaking crew on mainland flights initially and then on all flights later.

Other measures proposed by the airline included showing all the languages the flight attendants speak on their name tags - whereas currently, the name tags show their names, job titles, and major languages they speak.

A new monthly allowance will be given to those who can speak more than one Asian language.

Meanwhile, Lam refused to comment when reporters asked him repeatedly about an incident on Saturday in which 11 people were injured on Cathay Pacific's flight CX880 at the Hong Kong International Airport early on Saturday after the carrier aborted its take-off due to a technical issue.

The flight, from Hong Kong to Los Angeles, was carrying 17 crew and 293 passengers.

It performed "an aborted takeoff in accordance with standard procedures after a technical issue was detected by the crew," the carrier's statement on Saturday said.

The incident happened shortly after midnight and the fire service was immediately at the scene to assist the injured.

The Hong Kong Airport Authority said the problem as a signal anomaly while police said early on Saturday that a tire was thought to have burst.

After the aircraft returned to the gate a precautionary passenger evacuation was initiated by the crew and passengers exited the aircraft using five door escape slides.

"We understand that 11 passengers are being treated at the hospital for injuries sustained during the evacuation process," Cathay said.

Nine of the 11 passengers were discharged from hospital, Cathay said.

It added in two later statements on the same day that it had deployed staff to the hospital to provide assistance to two passengers who were still hospitalized.

"We sincerely apologize for the disruption to our customers' journeys," it said.

Another aircraft had been deployed and the airline also made alternative arrangements for those connecting flights to their destinations.