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Change is afoot at Cathay Pacific’s Hong Kong lounges as the airline aims to elevate the passenger experience for premium travellers and frequent flyers.
A Cathay spokesperson has confirmed to Executive Traveller that from November 1, the airline will begin taking over key passenger-facing roles from contractor Sodexo at its five Hong Kong lounges – The Wing First, The Wing Business, The Pier First, The Pier Business and The Deck.
French-headquartered Sodexo, which in 2018 replaced Plaza Premium as Cathay’s lounge operator, will remain active behind the scenes in catering and cleaning. Sodexo is also contracted for the Qantas Hong Kong Lounge.
Long-time Cathay flyers may recall the Hong Kong lounges were previously operated and managed by Peninsula Clubs and Consultancy Services, an arm of The Peninsula Hotels Group, from 1998 to 2016.
That’s about to change again, with Cathay saying “some front-of-house positions at its premium lounges in Hong Kong will be transferred from Sodexo to Cathay Pacific in phases starting November 2023.”
Cathay is seeing to burnish its reputation as a premium service-oriented airline.
A spokesperson from the airline described this as “an opportunity for us to deliver premium service to our valuable customers the Cathay Pacific way at key front-of-house roles, and align service excellence across our customer touchpoints.”
Executive Traveller understands Cathay’s take-over will begin at The Pier First, before sweeping through other lounges in the months to follow.
Resuming management of its home lounges will no doubt give Cathay much greater control in setting service standards as the Oneworld member continues its drive back to pre-pandemic levels.
The last of Cathay’s Hong Kong lounges reopened in the middle of this year when flagship The Pier First unlocked its doors in July 2023, although as previously reported, The Bridge – nestled between gates 35-36, at the arrivals point of the automated people mover shuttle – remains permanently closed.
Read: Your complete guide to Hong Kong’s Oneworld lounges
Cathay is also counting down to the ribbon-cutting of its new ‘seaport lounge’ at Shenzhen’s Shekou Ferry Port, which has been repeatedly delayed past an original opening date in August 2023.
Part of Cathay’s push into the Greater Bay Area, the compact lounge – designed along the same lines as Hong Kong’s The Deck – will cater to travellers who make the 30 minute fast ferry ride to Hong Kong Airport’s SkyPier and connect onto a Cathay Pacific flight.
Artist renders of Cathay’s new Shekou ferry pier lounge.
Cathay is also scoping out new lounges once the airport completes redevelopment of Terminal 2 in late 2024.
T2 will house many airlines currently operating out of T1, which Cathay expects will free up more room to quite literally spread its wings.
This “reallocation of airlines” will in turn open up new possibilities for Cathay Pacific, Vivian Lo, the airline’s General Manager for Customer Experience & Design, told Executive Traveller earlier this year.
“For the long term, and we are quite clear-minded about this, we want to focus our investment on Terminal 1.“
“Whether it is an Arrivals Lounge or a bigger, flagship lounge is something that we’ll study, so we’re doing a lot of customer insights… for the future flagship lounge.”
Based on its September 2023 report, Cathay Pacific is currently sitting at around 50% of pre-pandemic passenger and capacity figures. This is behind the airline’s stated goal of operating around 70% of pre-pandemic capacity by the end of 2023, with the target of reaching 100% capacity by the end of 2024.
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