Archive for ‘Boeing’

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29/04/2020

Cathay Pacific looks to increase passenger flights in late June if coronavirus travel restrictions are eased

  • Carrier targets return of daily services to major Asian cities and more frequent long-haul services
  • Airline to monitor global situation and adjustments may be made ‘as necessary’
A Cathay Pacific employee stands near the check-in desks at a virtually deserted Hong Kong International Airport. Photo: Sam Tsang
A Cathay Pacific employee stands near the check-in desks at a virtually deserted Hong Kong International Airport. Photo: Sam Tsang
Cathay Pacific Airways has signalled its intent to start reversing its near-total grounding of aircraft because of the coronavirus pandemic, and plans to start increasing its number of passenger flights in the last week of June.
The airline said it hoped to add more long-haul destinations, make flights more frequent, and reinstate some major Asian cities to its daily schedule for the first time in several months, “subject to government travel restrictions”.
Cathay scaled its operations back to a skeleton schedule of 3 per cent of services in early April, and that was extended until June 20. The newly announced increases would take that up to 5 per cent.
The global airline industry has been rocked by the pandemic, which triggered a collapse in air travel demand amid severe travel restrictions and tough quarantine measures.
Tracking the massive impact of the Covid-19 pandemic on the world’s airline industry in early 2020 Singapore Airlines, another of Asia’s major carriers, said last week it would maintain a 96 per cent reduction in flights until the end of June.
Cathay, which has 236 aircraft, currently operates long-haul flights to London Heathrow, Los Angeles, Vancouver and Sydney twice a week, but will increase that to five times a week.

On top of that, Amsterdam, Frankfurt, San Francisco and Melbourne are among the long-haul destinations set to return three times a week.

With regional routes currently operating three times a week, including Tokyo Narita, Taipei, Beijing and Singapore, Asian routes will increase to a daily service. Osaka and Seoul would also return to the network, too.

“We will continue to monitor the developing situation and further adjustments may be made as necessary,” the airline said.

Coronavirus: ban on non-residents leaves Hong Kong airport virtually deserted
Earlier this month, Cathay’s budget unit HK Express extended its total grounding until June 18, having been on hiatus since March 23.

Meanwhile, Boeing has added to warnings of a very slow recovery in air travel, with Dave Calhoun, its CEO, saying demand may not return to 2019 levels for two to three years.

Cathay Pacific’s daily passenger volume has collapsed from regular previous peaks of 100,000 to less than 1,000 in April. Over the past two months, the company has been running more than 250 extra pairs of cargo-only passenger flights to maintain air freight capacity, much of which is accounted for by passenger services.

In a bid to cut costs, most of the Cathay Pacific Group’s 34,200 staff have taken three weeks of unpaid leave. Also, 433 cabin crew in the US and Canada were told they would be laid off, while about 200 pilots in the UK, Australia have been furloughed.

The International Air Transport Association, which revised down pandemic-related revenue losses for the global sector to US$314 billion (HK$2.4 trillion) two weeks ago, said last week the Hong Kong aviation market would take a US$7.5 billion hit this year, a 27 per cent increase on the previous estimate. That equates to a 59 per cent decline in air travel demand, or a loss of almost 31 million passengers, in 2020.

BOCOM International, a financial services company, forecast in a report on Monday that the city’s aviation sector would lose HK$65.2 billion in revenue in 2020, yet Cathay Pacific could emerge as a winner if it survived largely unscathed, given the weakness of rivals at home and in the region plus its dominant position in Hong Kong.

“Hong Kong aviation is at the most critical juncture in its history. Though calamitous, Covid-19 is set to reshape Hong Kong’s aviation industry for the years, possibly decades, to come,” said transportation analyst Luya You.

“Covid-19’s sweeping blows now offer a blank slate for remaining players to regain lost leadership or gain new markets. If [Cathay Pacific] can survive intact from Covid, the carrier could enjoy winner-takes-all growth trajectory in the years following [2020].”

Source: SCMP

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20/09/2019

Aviation watchdog may ask Boeing to set up 737 MAX simulators in India

NEW DELHI (Reuters) – India’s aviation safety regulator may ask Boeing (BA.N) to set up simulators in India to train pilots on the 737 MAX planes once it clears the aircraft as safe for flying, a senior official with direct knowledge of the matter told Reuters.

The 737 MAX, the fastest-selling plane in Boeing’s history, has been grounded the world over since March in the aftermath of two fatal crashes in five months that killed 346 people.

India’s Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) will also conduct an independent inspection of the grounded planes once they are cleared for flying by the U.S. regulator, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA).

“Once FAA re-certifies it and says these issues have been resolved then we will evaluate whether what they are saying is right or wrong … We will carry out our own inspections,” the official said, adding that it is unlikely the planes will fly in Indian skies until next year.

Boeing is making software changes and drawing up a new pilot training plan, and will need to conduct a key certification test flight to get the FAA’s approval before it can put the planes back in the air. Some federal officials expect the test flight to be conducted in October.

“Later this year India will send a team. We would like to take a look at their flight data, some simulators will also be required for training pilots,” the official said, adding it may ask Boeing to have simulators in India.

Indian carrier SpiceJet (SPJT.BO) has about a dozen Boeing 737 MAX planes in its fleet and a total of 155 on order – among the largest single orders for the narrow-body plane.

Boeing has delivered some 385 737 MAX jets globally before the March grounding and has roughly 5,000 orders for the aircraft, a more fuel-efficient version of the manufacturer’s best-selling single-aisle 737 series.

Source: Reuters

Posted in Aircraft, aviation safety regulator, Aviation watchdog, Boeing, Boeing 737, Boeing 737 MAX, Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA, fleet, India alert, Indian carrier, simulators, SpiceJet (SPJT.BO), U.S. Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), Uncategorized | Leave a Comment »

04/07/2019

China’s top talent now wants to work for rising domestic tech stars, not big brand multinationals

  • China’s talent is turning away from multinationals and towards domestic tech champions in the search for a more fulfilling career
  • Change in sentiment comes amid raging US-China tech war and perceptions of ‘bamboo ceiling’ in the West
An increasing number of Chinese jobseekers are looking towards domestic tech firms. Image: SCMP
An increasing number of Chinese jobseekers are looking towards domestic tech firms. Image: SCMP
Molly Liu left her hometown Beijing to pursue a master’s degree in the United States in the 1990s.
After graduation, she fought hard to win an entry-level position at a US-based consultancy and after a period was later sent back to China to help the company’s expansion.
In the land of opportunity, the ambitious US firm showered her with avenues to pursue her career and she ended up working in Hong Kong as well as being one of the first people on the ground for the consultancy in Shanghai, Beijing, Taipei and Singapore.
Times have changed, though. Recently, her only son, Ben Zhang, turned down a hard-to-get job offer from a Boeing subsidiary in the US after gaining a master’s degree in computer science from Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.
Chinese students educated in the US are now looking more at jobs in China. Photo: SCMP
Chinese students educated in the US are now looking more at jobs in China. Photo: SCMP

He decided to return to Beijing in 2018 and now works as a product manager at Chinese smartphone maker Xiaomi. He is convinced that the start-up turned tech major can offer him the same sort of opportunities today that the US tech consultancy offered his mother in the 1990s.

This family story about the career choices of two different generations of US-educated Chinese students reflects a wider trend. Once upon a time, US corporations could cherry-pick top Chinese talent from American universities with the promise of large salaries, generous benefits and the chance to work at market-leading organisations.

Today, China’s cutting-edge technology companies – often referred to as China Tech Corporation (CTC) – are the most sought-after employers among many Chinese students, who want more than just a cushy life.

This marks another blow for multinational corporations (MNCs) already struggling to do business in China amid a myriad of restrictions and growing hostility towards them as the US-China trade and tech war gathers pace.

“What I look for in a job is not money. My parents are not counting on me to support them,” says 28-year-old Zhang, whose team in Xiaomi is working on a wide array of connected devices, from televisions to lamps to smart locks. “What I care about most is personal improvement and access to the best resources a company can offer.”

“In Boeing, I could probably work on a new product once every two to three years. But at Xiaomi, every three months, we can roll out a new product,” he added. “You can bring so many things into people’s everyday lives in China, like using your voice to control a TV or an air conditioner – things you can only imagine in the US.”

Zhang is not alone and many Chinese today perceive a “bamboo ceiling” in the US, where they are more often seen as engineers rather than executives.

One Chinese executive who now oversees the technology unit of a listed finance and insurance firm in China said that he used to lead a team of 20 engineers at one of the world’s most valuable tech companies in Silicon Valley.

“My job was to keep optimising the performance of a product [in Silicon Valley],” he said.

“But within three years in China, I was promoted to the chief scientist of our entire company, leading a team of 1,000,” said the man, who asked to remain anonymous as some of his family still reside in the US.

How Trump’s assault on Huawei is forcing the world to contemplate a digital iron curtain

According to an April survey by professional networking site LinkedIn, an increasing number of Chinese jobseekers share Zhang’s outlook. LinkedIn compiled a list of the top 25 most desired employers in China, and about 60 per cent were local Chinese companies, with 13 of them internet firms.

CTC bagged four of the top five spots, with e-commerce giant Alibaba, search giant operator Baidu and Bytedance – which operates short video hit TikTok – taking the lead.

Tesla ranked sixth behind its Chinese challenger Nio. Amazon, the only other foreign company in the top ten, ranked eighth.

Alibaba is the owner of the South China Morning Post.

Li Qiang, executive vice-president of Zhaopin, one of China’s largest online recruiters, described the rising status of CTC among jobseekers as “the dawning of a new era”.

“Nowadays, there is nothing a multinational can offer that a domestic firm cannot, be it a compensation package or the chance to be part of international expansion,” said Beijing-based Li.

“Jobseekers are not particularly looking for domestic firms or multinational firms. They are after good firms and most of the good firms in China these days happen to be domestic tech firms,” said Li.

Li’s comments reflect the wider opportunities within the domestic economy for Chinese jobseekers today, after the rise of many successful private-sector companies and a thriving start-up scene over the past 10 years, meaning it’s not just a one-way street to a state-owned enterprise (SOE) any longer.

A survey by Zhaopin in late 2018 found that 28 per cent of Chinese university students said MNCs were their employer of choice, down from 33.6 per cent in 2017.

Even on pay and benefits, CTC is catching up with multinationals. Zhang said Xiaomi matched the offer from the Boeing unit in the US and many leading tech firms offer benefits such as gym memberships and childcare facilities.

And the rags-to-riches stories of many leading China tech entrepreneurs, some of whom have become billionaires, continue to grab media attention and inspire the younger generation.

To be sure, Chinese students would still rather work for an MNC than an SOE – but the rise of CTC can be seen in company rankings and in the total number of CTC companies in the top employer list, according to Zhaopin.

For a growing number of Chinese students, the doors to America are closing

William Wu, China country manager of global employer brand consultancy Universum, said that the one element Chinese jobseekers pay most attention to these days is whether or not a job can be “a good reference point for a future career”. And a growing number of private Chinese companies now have global brand recognition.

A recent survey by Universum shows that Apple and Siemens were the only two Western names in the top 10 ideal employers for Chinese students in the engineering sector this year, while there were four foreign firms in the top 10 list in 2017.

Huawei Technologies, the Chinese telecoms giant that has been put on a US trade blacklist after the Trump administration said it was a national security risk, ranked top in the Universum list. Xiaomi, the smartphone maker Ben Zhang works for, ranked second while Apple, one of the most valuable tech firms in the US, ranked seventh.

It seems that China’s rising clout in the world is now an attractive factor for jobseekers.

“Every engineer would like to see the technology they’ve worked on have the potential to change the world one day,” said Li Yan, head of multimedia understanding at Chinese short video major Kuaishou. “In the old times Chinese companies were at the bottom of the global value chain, now they are climbing up, providing more opportunities for talent to create world-changing products.”

At Beijing-based Kuaishou, Li’s 100-strong artificial intelligence algorithm team – many of whom joined from Microsoft Asia Research – is working to make machines understand content better than humans by studying the millions of user-generated videos on the company’s platform every day.

CTC companies do have a strong home advantage, with big Western firms having to navigate a myriad of restrictions.

For example, the “Great Firewall” lets Chinese authorities control the content and information reaching the country’s 800 million-plus internet population. Western firms also face other forms of red tape, such as having to form joint ventures with local partners.

Amazon earlier this year announced the close of its China marketplace, giving up the brutal fight with Chinese online shopping giants such as Alibaba to capture domestic e-commerce market share. Oracle China reportedly laid off 900 people in March as it winds down its research and development center in the country.

Job applicants visit a provincial job fair at Qujiang International Conference and Exhibition Center in Xian, northwest China's Shaanxi Province in February. Photo: Xinhua
Job applicants visit a provincial job fair at Qujiang International Conference and Exhibition Center in Xian, northwest China’s Shaanxi Province in February. Photo: Xinhua

Oracle has never confirmed the number of lay-offs but said the job cuts formed part of an overall global strategy transformation.

However, there has been little sympathy for those losing their jobs in China, judging by social media posts.

Some people posted that those working for big US tech firms are not “wolf” enough compared with counterparts who work for local tech firms, referring to the long work-hours culture of the domestic tech scene.

A viral story titled “Why there should be no pity for the sacked Oracle China employees” said the company was Beijing’s biggest nursery because of the flexible “work from home” culture and generous compensation package offered to employees.

Oracle said to begin mass lay-offs in China as part of global move to cloud services

“They had every chance to join rising domestic internet firms. But they settled for high salary and low work pressure, which eventually made them frogs in boiling water. Why pity them?” said the article, adding that the earlier people give up on the “glory” of working for MNCs, the quicker they will benefit.

Not all Chinese workers would agree, and there has been a recent backlash against the “996” culture within China’s tech sector, where people routinely work from 9am to 9pm, six days a week.

With geopolitical uncertainty growing day by day, though, many Chinese are asking why leave the family behind for an uncertain fate overseas?

A survey done by consultancy BCG and The Network in 2018 showed that only one in three China residents was willing to move abroad for work, down from 61 per cent in 2014. The country is also the 20th most popular destination worldwide to relocate for a job, compared with 29th in the 2014.

“One of my graduate classmates in the US just gave up a six-digit package at Oracle and joined drone maker DJI in Shenzhen,” said Ben Zhang. “I asked what prompted his return to China. He sent me the viral article and asked, ‘who wants a life that one can see the end of from the very beginning?’”

Source: SCMP

Posted in Alibaba, Apple, ‘bamboo ceiling’, “Great Firewall”, Baidu, Beijing, big brand multinationals, Boeing, Bytedance, Carnegie Mellon University, China Tech Corporation (CTC), China’s top talent, Hong Kong, huawei technologies, Kuaishou, LinkedIn, multinational corporations (MNCs), Nio. Amazon, Oracle China\, Pennsylvania, Pittsburgh, Qujiang International Conference and Exhibition Center, rising domestic tech stars, shaanxi province, Shanghai, Siemens, Silicon Valley, Singapore, south china morning post, state-owned enterprise (SOE), Taipei, Tesla, TikTok, Uncategorized, Universum, wants to work, Xi'an, Xiaomi | Leave a Comment »

24/02/2019

North Korea’s Kim on his way by train to summit with Trump in Vietnam

SEOUL/HANOI (Reuters) – North Korean leader Kim Jong Un made his way across China by train on Sunday, media reported, bound for a high-stakes second nuclear summit with U.S. President Donald Trump in Vietnam’s capital of Hanoi.

Few details of Kim’s trip have been announced but he left Pyongyang by train on Saturday afternoon for the Feb. 27-28 summit accompanied by senior North Korean officials as well as his influential sister, North Korea’s state media reported.

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Trump and Kim will meet in Hanoi eight months after their historic summit in Singapore, the first between a sitting U.S. president and a North Korean leader, where they pledged to work towards the complete denuclearisation of the Korean peninsula.

With little progress since then, the two leaders are expected to focus on what elements of North Korea’s nuclear programme it might begin to give up, in exchange for U.S. concessions.

In rare, revealing coverage of Kim’s travel, while it is still going on, the North’s Rodong Sinmun newspaper featured photographs of him getting a red-carpet send-off in Pyongyang and waving from a train carriage door while holding a cigarette.

 

He was accompanied by top officials also involved in the Singapore summit, including Kim Yong Chol, a former spy chief and Kim’s top envoy in negotiations with the United States, as well as senior party aide Ri Su Yong, Foreign Minister Ri Yong Ho and defence chief No Kwang Chol.

The North Korean leader’s sister, Kim Yo Jong, who acted as a close aide in Singapore, is again part of the delegation, the North’s KCNA news agency reported. It made no mention of his wife, Ri Sol Ju.

The extensive coverage in the secretive North’s official media was a contrast to the limited reporting that has traditionally prevailed during his foreign trips.

Other senior officials, such as his de facto chief of staff Kim Chang Son and Kim Hyok Chol, negotiations counterpart to U.S. envoy Stephen Biegun, were already in Hanoi to prepare for the summit.

With scant progress since the June summit, the two leaders are likely to try to build on their personal connection to push things forward in Hanoi, even if only incrementally, analysts said.

Both sides are under pressure to forge more specific agreements than were reached in Singapore, which critics, especially in the United States, said lacked detail.

 

“They will not make an agreement which breaks up the current flow of diplomacy. (President Trump) has mentioned that they’ll meet again; even if there is a low-level agreement, they will seek to keep things moving,” said Shin Beom-chul, a senior fellow at the Asan Institute for Policy Studies.

LEARNING FROM VIETNAM

The Trump administration has pressed the North to give up its nuclear weapons programme, which, combined with its missile capabilities, poses a threat to the United States, before it can expect any concessions.

North Korea wants an easing of punishing U.S.-led sanctions, security guarantees and a formal end of the 1950-1953 Korean War, which ended in a truce, not a treaty.

Few details of summit arrangements have been released.

Some lamp posts on Hanoi’s tree-lined streets are decked with North Korean, U.S. and Vietnamese flags fluttering above a handshake design, and security has been stepped up at locations that could be the summit venue, or where the leaders might stay.

It could take Kim at least 2-1/2 days to travel to Vietnam by train.

Some carriages of a green train were spotted at Beijing’s station on Sunday, but it was not confirmed it was Kim’s.

South Korea’s Yonhap news agency said Kim’s train had passed through a station in China’s port city of Tianjin, southeast of Beijing, at around 1 p.m. (0500 GMT).

China has given no details of his trip. Its foreign ministry did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Two top North Korean officials who were not in Singapore but will be in Hanoi are Kim Phyong Hae and O Su Yong, vice chairmen of the party’s Central Committee, respectively in charge of personnel management and industrial affairs, KCNA reported.

O is a former minister of electronics and vice minister of metals and machine building. He might try to learn about Vietnam’s development of manufacturing, analysts said.

Kim Jong Un may tour some economic facilities while in Vietnam.

Vietnam, like North Korea, fought a war against the United States and keeps tight control over its people and economy. It has been touted as a model for North Korea’s development.

Vietnamese media reported that a North Korean cargo plane arrived on Sunday carrying personnel who appeared to be Kim’s security guards and state media workers. They were driven under police escort to a downtown hotel.

Source: Reuters

Posted in Asan Institute for Policy Studies, Bamboo Airways, Beijing, Boeing, Central Committee, China alert, Cigarette, defence chief, denuclearisation, foreign minister, Hanoi, historic summit, KCNA, Kim Chang Son, Kim Hyok Chol, Kim Jong-un, Kim Phyong Hae, Kim Yo Jong, Kim Yong Chol, Korean peninsula, Korean War, metals and machine building, minister of electronics, news agency, No Kwang Chol, North Korea, nuclear summit, O Su Yong, President Donald Trump, Pyongyang, red-carpet, Ri Sol Ju, Ri Su Yong, Ri Yong Ho, Rodong Sinmun, Shin Beom-chul, Singapore, sister, South Korea, Stephen Biegun, Tianjin, trains, U.S. envoy, Uncategorized, Vietnam, Yonhap | Leave a Comment »

15/12/2018

Boeing opens first 737 plant in China amid U.S.-Sino trade war

ZHOUSHAN, China (Reuters) – Boeing Co (BA.N) opened its first 737 completion plant in China on Saturday, a strategic investment aimed at building a sales lead over arch-rival Airbus (AIR.PA) in one of the world’s top travel markets that has been overshadowed by the U.S-China trade war.

The world’s largest planemaker also delivered the first of its top-selling 737s completed at the facility in Zhoushan, about 290 km (180 miles) southeast of Shanghai, to state carrier Air China (601111.SS)(0753.HK) during a ceremony on Saturday with top executives from both companies.

The executives, alongside representatives from China’s state planner and aviation regulator, unveiled the plane at an event attended by hundreds of people.

Boeing and Airbus have been expanding their footprint in China as they vie for orders in the fast-growing aviation market, which is expected to overtake the United States as the world’s largest in the next decade.

Boeing invested $33 million last year to take a majority stake in a joint venture with state-owned Commercial Aircraft Corp of China (COMAC) to build the completion center, which installs interiors and paints liveries.

Chicago-based Boeing calls itself the top U.S. exporter and delivered more than one out of every four jetliners it made last year to customers in China, where it forecasts demand for 7,700 new airplanes over the next 20 years valued at $1.2 trillion.

However, the plant’s inaugural ceremony was overshadowed by tensions between the United States and China as they engage in a bruising tit-for-tat tariff war. The world’s two largest economies are in a 90-day detente to negotiate a trade deal.

“Am I nervous about the situation? Yeah, of course. It’s a challenging environment,” John Bruns, President of Boeing China, told reporters on a conference call earlier on Saturday.

“We have to keep our eye on the long game in China. Long term, I’m optimistic we will work our way through this,” he said.

While the trade frictions have hurt businesses such as U.S. soy bean farmers and Chinese manufacturers, their impact on Boeing has been unclear. U.S.-made aircraft have so far escaped Beijing’s tariffs.

Bruns said he remained optimistic about the outcome of trade talks between the United States and China and described aviation as a “bright spot” amid tensions between the two countries.

Asked about the possibility of technology transfer agreements between Boeing and COMAC, Bruns stressed that the purpose of the plant was for installing seats, painting vehicles, and completing the planes’ final delivery.

“That’s only a part of what we do in the production of airplanes,” he said.

China to halt added tariffs on U.S.-made cars

Officials and executives made no direct reference to the trade tensions in public remarks at the planemaker’s Zhoushan facility.

Boeing aims eventually to hit a delivery target of 100 planes a year at Zhoushan, although Bruns deflected a question on how quickly it would reach that level and said Boeing had no plans to expand work to other aircraft types.

Boeing also hopes the plant will relieve pressure at the Seattle-area facility where it plans to boost production next year of its best-selling 737 narrowbody aircraft but has struggled with production delays.

Posted in Boeing, China alert, Plant, trade war, Uncategorized, USA | Leave a Comment »

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