How AI is changing the way Cathay Pacific flies

AI is the buzzword on everyone’s lips, but we’ve been implementing it for nearly a decade behind the scenes. From our virtual customer service assistants to destination recommendations on our website, we’ve made innovative leaps forward – all with the goal of making your next journey your best one.

While many of our artificial intelligence projects focus on cargo and aviation logistics, Edward Coles-Gale, Head of Enterprise Analytics and Insights, and Gordon Chu, Digital Innovation Manager, are using AI to enhance customer experience. 

“We started with a machine learning use case looking at how we can provide better destination recommendations to customers that come to our website,” says Coles-Gale, referring to a project that began in 2018.

Now, with 60 machine learning projects on the go here at Cathay, covering everything from predicting the amount of baggage space required on an aircraft to calculating how many inflight meals we load on planes, we’re constantly pushing the boundaries of what technology will allow us to do. 

“We're leveraging technology to do things that we weren’t able to do before, at scale,” says Coles-Gale.

To strengthen our AI capabilities, we’ve been expanding the way we collect and analyse data – resulting in greater insights. Aircraft, Coles-Gale explains, are a fantastic source of data as they’re full of sensors which collect information and can be fed back into their machine learning systems.

Rigorous testing takes place before we begin formally implementing any new programmes to ensure their safety and efficiency, alongside the constant development of our generative AI capabilities for smoother customer service.

AI chat and the future

Before you even board a plane, there’s a chance you’ve already come across our AI at work. As Coles-Gale explains, “our customer-impacting projects centre around personalisation and making sure our communications are relevant – and hopefully more interesting and beneficial.”

We’re looking into how we can apply these insights to our lifestyle and shopping destinations and to Cathay Holidays. Heading off on a sunny beachside holiday? In time, our AI will be able to recommend the best hot weather essentials and pick out the best hotels for your specific needs.

We’ve also invested heavily in upgrading our virtual chat assistants to ensure an elevated level of care, true to our values. Chu says that managing it is “no small effort” as, with the help of ChatGPT, we’re constantly evolving what it can do, such as adding new topics and automating certain conversations. 

“We’re optimising chat flow for fluid conversations – as you would have with a human,” Chu says. “We ask questions like, ‘what words should trigger the right sentiment in response?’ There are hundreds of ways to ask the same question, so we have to make the machine understand that.”

But we believe that at the end of the day, it’s people who elevate your experience and bring an emotional connection. As Chu explains, “We don’t want to replace the human touch with a machine. The machine is good at doing something, but it doesn’t mean that it will replace humans.”

As for what we’re working on next: we’re exploring how AI can predict flight delays and mitigate disruptions to your journey. “It’s much wider than just AI, but there’s certainly an AI element to the technical solution,” says Coles-Gale.

“We don’t see AI as replacing or acting in isolation from humans,” he adds, “but instead helping our teammates be better informed and make better decisions.”