A passenger plane of low-cost airline Hong Kong Express Airways takes off at the Hong Kong Airport. Photo: Reuters
The big screen is rife with maudlin yet tickling tales of wealthy mandarins who open their homes to penurious scamps to “civilise” them at considerable risk to the practised calm of the manor. What ensues is a capricious cultural collision. Professor Higgins struggled with Eliza Doolittle to say “Oh not Ow” and luxury hotels and legacy airlines today are wrestling with their own bratty brands, embarrassingly downscale but seemingly necessary to get a bigger bite of the pie.
After years of stubborn nose-up disdain for the bruising hurly-burly of low cost operations, Cathay Pacific has taken the plunge with a HK$4.93bil (RM2.6bil) offer for homegrown Hong Kong LCC, HK Express, which brings to the stable planes with names like siu mai (pork dumpling). Will this be a marriage made in hell? Or a lifesaver, for a carrier finally struggling out of badly hedged aviation fuel bets?
