On behalf of Cathay Pacific Airways, I would like to apologise for the severe disruptions you experienced during Typhoon Prapiroon last week. The typhoon caused more delays, diversions and cancellations than any other since we moved to the new Hong Kong International Airport at Chek Lap Kok in 1998. I would like to take this opportunity to explain the reasons for that, and to assure you that we are committed to finding ways to minimise future disruptions.

When typhoon signal No. 3 was hoisted on 3 August, most airlines, including Cathay Pacific, had expected to be able to operate a near-normal schedule. Passengers were checked in and boarded as usual. However, as the day wore on, our flight operations were badly affected by excessive winds at and around the airport. Weather conditions deteriorated further when the track of Typhoon Prapiroon took an unexpected turn to the north.

Strong southeasterly winds and gust levels made safe arrivals or departures difficult, and wind-shear warnings were in force during the day. As it became clear that adverse weather would preclude normal operations until the early hours of Friday morning, large numbers of flights of all airlines had to be cancelled or diverted. Cathay Pacific decided to cancel all flights until 9:00am on Friday, irrespective of which typhoon signal was in force. Overall, some 12,000 of our passengers were affected in one way or another by flight disruptions.

Service interruptions were at their worst on Friday 4 August, with 83 of our scheduled flights out of Hong Kong delayed because of various factors including continuing poor weather conditions, congested airspace at the airport and the need to accommodate 42 Cathay Pacific flights which had been diverted to various cities around Asia in the previous 24 hours.

However, despite the fact that our airline was operating at virtually full capacity because of the summer holiday peak season, we were able to mount eight extra flights on Friday to help clear 8,000 Cathay Pacific passengers who had been stranded by flight cancellations on Thursday. Flight operations returned to normal on Saturday when all but a relatively small number of our stranded passengers were allocated seats on replacement flights.

We certainly appreciate the frustration of those passengers who experienced a lack of adequate or timely information during this difficult period. Maintaining communications to such a large volume of passengers was in itself a challenge. However, it was made even more problematic by the severity of the disruptions to our flight schedules and the delays to flights resulting from long check-in queues, the need to reallocate available seats among stranded passengers and the limited space and resources on hand to managed overstretched check-in operations.

As we always do in such situations, we will learn from the experience. Our various operational and customer-facing departments, including teams from Airports, Customer Relations, Inflight Services, The Marco Polo Club Service Centre, Reservations & Ticketing, Websites etc have spent much of this week reviewing our operations and customer handling procedures, and working out ways to improve them. We are also working with both the Government and the Airport Authority to improve communications and coordination with them.

These improved protocols will be in place as quickly as possible in preparation for any future disruptions. If you have any suggestions you would like to make, please email them to us via the Contact Us function on www.cathaypacific.com or our Customer Relations Department so we can include them in our ongoing reviews.

Once again, I apologise that your travel schedule was adversely affected last week. I hope our commitment to improving our services in similar circumstances will help reassure you that the interests of our passengers will always be the highest priority for Cathay Pacific.