Cathay Pacific not threatened by Gulf carriers

Cathay Pacific CEO, Tony Tyler, stated it would take Gulf carriers at least a "generation" to match Cathay's in flight service levels (Arabian Business, 08-Feb-2010). Mr Tyler stated that while such carriers win a number of awards from magazines, it is easy to do so as such magazines are mainly driven by advertising budgets, and that Cathay does not have a large advertising budget.

Cathay Pacific: "We spread our brand more by way of our product…On the hard product side, we are only nine [seats] abreast on our 777s. Gulf carriers tend to go ten abreast. It makes a huge difference in Economy class. But really, it is the soft product that other airlines will take a generation to develop, if they're lucky…I do believe that while it is possible to copy airlines' hard product, the quality of the human service that our cabin crew give is unrivalled by any airline…And that is not something you can easily copy. It is something that is built up over years of development and management and training. It is culture building, if you like, and the particular flavour of the Cathay Pacific service is something that is unique and I believe it is better…The fact is that between the major origins and destinations that we serve, we still offer a greatly superior product in terms of schedule and frequency, not to mention the onboard product. So we are certainly not an airline who feels our very livelihood is being threatened by the Gulf carriers," Tony Tyler, CEO. Source: Arabian Business, 08-Feb-2010.