Alan Lui’s misadventure in Tijuana & other journeys

One early morning many years ago, when Cathay Pacific Philippines country manager Alan Lui was a young traveler, he woke up on a bus and found himself in Tijuana, Mexico. Waking up in Tijuana is by no means uncommon — especially for those who have just finished university and are on a break, as Alan was, having traveled from Hong Kong to California for a holiday with friends.

The problem with waking up in Tijuana was that they had no intention of going to Mexico! They were supposed to get off the bus in San Diego and had only a single-entry visa to the US, which meant that once they crossed the US-Mexico border, they could not go back.

This is the story that Alan tells us when we ask him about the strangest thing he has ever experienced on a trip abroad.

“It was a very early coach, departing at 3 a.m., and we were supposed to arrive at 6 a.m. Everybody was asleep and then the coach stopped at a bus stop and I woke up and asked my friend, ‘Are we getting off?’ He said, no, not yet, it’s still early. Fifteen minutes later the bus stopped again, and I asked, have we arrived? My friend said no but everyone was getting off the bus and the driver said, ‘Hey, you’re here!’ Here, where? ‘You’re in Mexico,’ he said. We asked the driver, can we go back? The driver said, ‘No, you’re in Mexico!’”

So Alan, his friend from Hong Kong and his friend’s girlfriend ran to the immigration building to try to get back. You can imagine their panic as everybody seemed to be trying to get to the US side of the border and they all got separated at one point. “We waited for three hours and were told that they had never seen a single-entry visa before because most of the people going to Mexico were Americans who were making regular trips to buy merchandise or do business— never tourists falling asleep on the bus.

“After three  hours and a million questions — why are you here, how are you going to go back to Hong Kong, etc.— we were allowed to go back. They didn’t consider that we really ‘exited.’ Our friends said we were lucky that our bus’ last stop was just across the border. What if it went further to another city an hour or two away?”

Lucky indeed that he didn’t wake up with a tattoo with no recollection of ever getting one.

Alan Lui telling this story shows his easygoing nature and his sense of humor. Indeed, the new country manager of Cathay Pacific Philippines, who was appointed just last August, is probably one of the youngest country heads of a global airline at 34 years old.

Alan has ambitious plans for Cathay Pacific in the Philippines — or to put another way, he plans to connect the Philippines to as many destinations in the world as possible and make travel stress-free and with as many options of going to Hong Kong or connecting through HK.

“We want to continue to expand Cathay Pacific here,” Alan says. “In October we started having seven flights a day from Manila to Hong Kong for a total of 47 flights a week. Flights include departures from 3:30 a.m. till 8 p.m. In Cebu, we are adding flights for a total of 10 a week, direct from Cebu to Hong Kong. And we have four flights a week from Clark on Dragonair.”

Yes, the market is that big, says Alan. “We continue to see a rising demand. In fact, we want even more flights but the problem is runway congestion, which limits the slots.”

But why so many flights a day — why not just use bigger airplanes to fly more people? Alan says it’s the company’s strategy to be able to offer customers more choices and better connections. “The reason why we’re not getting A380s to add to our fleet  is because we believe in frequency rather than size. For example, from Hong Kong to London we have five flights a day. If we changed the aircraft to an A380 we can have only three maybe. We want customers to have more options in terms of schedule. This has always been Cathay’s strategy — to have more fuel-efficient aircraft and more flights to the destinations per day. If passengers miss their flight, there’s still another one or even three or four during the day.”

In 2016 Cathay will be receiving their order of more Airbus A350s, which carry around 300 passengers and are more fuel-efficient by 20 percent, “so that means more economical operations for us and for consumers lower costs — or at least prices that don’t rise dramatically even with the inflation.”

Cathay Pacific this year received the Best Airline in the World citation from Skytrax, the only airline that has received this award four times.

Anna Lee, Cathay Pacific assistant manager for marketing, adds, “We always want to be competitive with other airlines. At the same time, we are a premium airline and continue to give the best products and services to our passengers.”

For the Philippine market,  Alan says seven flights a day is perfect for those going to or transiting in Hong Kong to Europe or North America as it means shorter layovers. And this is especially important for business travelers who have to finish work during the day before flying out. “They can take the late afternoon flight or evening flight from Manila, arrive in Hong Kong and then catch the night flight to Europe or North America.”

At the moment, Cathay Pacific has 140 destinations, including code shares (in China alone they have 20 destinations). In December they are starting their service to Manchester. (The airline flies about 3,000 passengers from Hong Kong to London every day.) In March, they will start flying to Zurich, and to Boston in May.

They are also rolling out subtle changes in their  branding — the wing logo now looks like a brushstroke from traditional Chinese calligraphy.

And for its new home at NAIA Terminal 3, Cathay Pacific will launch its lounge (the biggest among the airlines that have moved to Terminal 3) next year. It will have its famous Noodle Bar, offering the same menu as that of their premium lounge The Wing in Hong Kong International Airport.

Alan Lui’s journey up the airline industry’s ladder began with science — or rather his boredom with it. If he didn’t start a career in travel, he might be inventing composite materials for airplanes today — or for other objects that we use in our everyday lives.

Alan finished his Bachelor of Science degree in Material Science in 2004 from the Chinese University of Hong Kong and did a year of research laboratory in New York, working on materials that allow cell phone cameras to zoom in without any part protruding on the phone itself.

He knew the technology that made planes fly faster and more efficiently even before he began working for an airline. But there came a point that Alan had to acknowledge that science bored him.

So he joined Dragonair in its revenue management team and had his first position out of Hong Kong in Changsha, Hunan, China as the chief representative for the airline in 2006. After the merger of Cathay Pacific and Dragonair in 2007, Alan assumed his role as assistant corporate communication manager in Hong Kong, looking after the 1,000-member company’s flagship community project  — Cathay Pacific’s “I Can Fly” Program. 

In 2008, Alan joined the cargo department as sales manager for Hong Kong right after the financial meltdown, witnessing the biggest ups and downs in the air cargo industry. After that, Alan was sent to Guangzhou, as the chief representative, where the airlines had a call center taking calls from the entire China, together with the blooming sales in the Pearl River Delta.

Shortly after that, Alan was assigned the role of manager for passenger sales in Hong Kong, looking after the biggest sales area of the airlines, and he was responsible for all the ticket sales generated through different channels.

And now he is country manager for the Philippines — in the airline’s 68th year — in a city where the name “Cathay Pacific” was coined.

“Manila is very symbolic in the history of Cathay,” says Anna. “The name was born in Manila Hotel. Our founders, American Roy C. Farrell and Australian Sydney H, de Kantzow, were staying at the Manila Hotel and in the bar they were chatting and then came up with the name.”

“It’s exciting to be in Manila at this time when people are traveling more and more and the economy is doing well,” says Alan, who is also shepherding the cargo business of Cathay Pacific here. (“Cargo doesn’t talk back to you or complain like passengers do,” he jokes.)

 “We want to see if there are more destinations here (we have three at the moment: Manila, Cebu and Clark) where we can operate in the future.”