KEY POINTS:
David Figgins says there's an old airline joke about the five-year plan being changed every Friday.
Figgins, Cathay Pacific's man in Auckland for the past 34 years, is now seeing the latest threat to long-term strategy _ soaring fuel bills _ as one of the most disturbing he's experienced.
"You always get incidences which are global, which might be Gulf wars or Sars _ they come and go but at the moment there doesn't seem to be any end in sight for this fuel price. You'd have to hope it's just a spike and you have to adjust your operation accordingly. Whatever form that is is not evident yet.
"Routes which have been stars in the past are not looking so good, they're affected by the economy and fuel."
In a business where the tag "industry veteran" is sprinkled liberally, the affable 64-year-old has seen it all and is not getting down in the dumps.
"The US economy won't stop forever, but the next 12 months are going to be pretty rough. These things come and go _ it is cyclical."
Figgins spent 10 years in the aviation business before setting up Cathay in Auckland, mainly as a clerk for Air India in Australia.
His links to India stretched back to father "Figgy" (Bernard) Figgins, an RAF instructor who in the pioneering 1930s helped set up and train pilots for Tata Airlines, the forerunner to Air India.
David Figgins spent his early years in India until his family moved back to Britain before emigrating to New Zealand in the early 1950s.
Although they were dairy farmers near Hamilton, links to aviation remained strong, with young David being flown around the Waikato in a Tiger Moth.
Although he doesn't regard himself as academic, Figgins says he got through school with an almost photographic memory, a trait which those who work with him now say still serves him well. His easy-going demeanour, they say, is more than matched with an attention to detail.
Likewise, he has a reputation for making the point "very strongly" if his airline's rivals start "screwing the scrum".
He toyed with pharmacy before Air India connections took him to Sydney and Perth from the mid-60s.
While Commonwealth cousins Air India, Qantas and British Airways held a strong position in the growing long-haul market in the Southwest Pacific, Cathay Pacific Airways was also on the expansion trail.
Cathay was founded in 1946, JK Swire bought in two years later and in a period of rapid growth expanded its route network throughout Southeast Asia.
Figgins had admired the culture of the airline from afar, so when the opportunity came to set up a New Zealand office, mainly to feed Australia, he jumped at it.
In September 1974, he moved into Vulcan Lane in Auckland's CBD.
"There were five empty rooms, there was no telephone, no postal address. It was interesting, it was like having to build your own business."
During his early days in aviation travelling by ship was the cheap form of transport.
"The whole aviation business was for the privileged, but that changed in the mid-70s with the introduction of advance purchase fares and the 747. The economics of those aircraft rapidly made travel more affordable for everyone."
The first scheduled service between Hong Kong and New Zealand was a joint venture in November 1982 between Cathay Pacific, Air Niugini and Air New Zealand.
This tripartite venture was a rotational service with Air New Zealand operating for six months, with Cathay Pacific doing the next period, then Air Niugini. The flight had a brief stopover at Port Moresby.
Another joint venture established with Air New Zealand lasted for five years until Cathay went its own way, building up to as many as 12 flights a week over summer, linking with Dragon Air in Hong Kong.
"Cathay's always been a believer that you're better to cover both sides of the day with frequency and that's one of the reasons why we'll be operating two a day in the summer peak."
Figgins says the challenge for airlines is increasing fares quickly enough to keep pace with fuel costs. Like other airlines, Cathay has been putting up fares and fuel surcharges and cutting back some services between Hong Kong and the United States.
"I don't think this global crisis will go on forever. There'll be an end in sight but I think we're heading into the trough of it and it will take a while to come out.
"You can't stop _ you have to keep your airplanes flying to make some money. You just have to make sure you use them the most sensible way you can."
On the environmental front, Cathay started a carbon offset scheme last year and Figgins hopes biofuel research by other airlines pays off.
"The main focus has to be distribution [of biofuel] and impact on food."
He's off to Shanghai next week to be updated on Cathay's strategy for coping with the fuel crisis.
While the shock will have serious impact in the medium term, and the terror attacks of September 11 had the shock value, the most "savage" crisis for Cathay was Sars, the fatal flu.
"In terms of cash flow it was a disaster, it really paralysed Asia. But that came and went."
At the lowest point on May 13, 2003, the total number of passengers travelling on Cathay was only 5310, compared with the 29,000 the airline had carried on the same day a year earlier.
Some 75 flights were cancelled and more than half the fleet was forced to sit idle on the ground.
Cathay didn't lay anyone off; staff were instead asked to take a month's unpaid leave.
"When it was all over they gave back the money we had given to them under dire circumstances."
New Zealand poses special challenges, being at the end of the line for airlines, although it will become a stopover in a round-the-world route incorporating South America.
"You've got to think the southern Pacific will grow like the northern Pacific but that's some years away. This is a difficult area to serve. New Zealand is driven by inbound, there's not enough Kiwis here to support the amount of seats we're offering."
Travellers will have to adapt to higher air fares, which are still cheap compared with on-the-ground costs.
"People have been spoiled with airfares for a long time _ flying's still good value but we'll have to readjust our perspective."
Figgins is 65 next year but has no thoughts of retiring from a job that has been a fair bit bigger than he signed up for.
"I thought I'd be left alone in the South Pacific, cruising around having a wonderful time _ I didn't imagine how aviation would grow the way it has."
