Cathay ignores calls for low-cost airline

July 4, 2012

John Slosar, chief executive of Cathay Pacific Airways, has dismissed suggestions that the Hong Kong-based airline needs to launch a low-cost subsidiary to match its rivals.

Mr Slosar said Cathay had not lost ground to rivals that had created budget airlines to survive a period of high fuel costs and declining freight and business travel.

“The fact that people are setting up a lot of [budget] airlines doesn’t necessarily mean that they are successful,” Mr Slosar told the Financial Times in an interview.

“None of the new budget airlines in Asia has run us off any routes. In fact,  on a lot of routes we have kept a gain in market share just by increasing capacity.”

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