Cathay Good-bye is Final

Today

Thursday, December 10, 1998

YES, it's final. Cathay Pacific is not interested in pursuing any tie-up with Philippine Airlines. Period. And that's despite President Joseph Estrada's avowed intent to get the two sides to sit down and resolve their differences.

This was confirmed to us by an impeccable source in Swire House, Cathay's head office in Hong Kong. We understand that the Cathay hierarchy feels it has spent enough time unsuccessfully courting PAL and its chairman Lucio Tan, and now it's time for both parties to move on.

As our source succinctly put it: "We realized in due course that anything to do with Philippine Airlines is an emotive subject in Manila. At times it seemed as if we were not just negotiating with a company but the whole country."

Cathay officials were also anxious to refute any suggestion that they had snubbed President Estrada by not attending a meeting he had called at Polk Street a few days ago.

Explained our source: "We are very respectful of the President and his efforts to save the national carrier. It’s just that we were not informed that any such meeting was taking place."

A member of the PAL board told us that middle management and other rank-and-file staff were all for the merger with Cathay. But it was the senior management who was vehemently against it.

He went on: "Senior managers, nearly all of whom are beholden to Lucio Tan, have everything to lose if Cathay comes in and brings its own professional team."

That leaves poor Lucio all alone by his karaoke machine singing "Come fly with me." Any takers?