HK Express CEO Jeanette Mao talks growth, inflight street food and her hope to see more women in aviation

HK Express has sold more than 400,000 curry fish balls to passengers since it launched its street food-inspired menu a year ago. The inflight menu includes such Hong Kong classics as fish siu mai, egg waffles and cha chaan teng-style French toast—the airline even partnered with famed local eatery Ging Sun Ho to put its iconic pan-fried pork buns bursting with soup on the menu.

“We wanted to showcase local food to visitors and give travellers from Hong Kong a taste of home,” says Mao. “When it comes to Hong Kong cuisine, there’s such a variety, it was hard to decide which to focus on. In the end, we decided on street food.”

It has also been praised by travellers for launching exclusive routes to unique destinations, including Hualien in Taiwan and Shizuoka in Japan. “Shizuoka is the best place to go if you want to see Mount Fuji. It’s also very close to the sea, so you can have incredible sushi for a very reasonable price—many people don’t know, but actually, a lot of the best sushi in Tokyo is from Shizuoka,” says Mao.

Another objective is to bring more travellers to Hong Kong. For example, since launching the Penang route, Mao says she’s seen a lot more people from Malaysia come to visit Hong Kong. “Our goal is to help people achieve their travel dreams. I’m proud that we provide options for different people, especially those who may not fly so frequently, but with us as an affordable option, they’re able to fly more.

For example, a lot of our schedules are designed to suit people who work full-time jobs: flying Friday night and coming back late Sunday night so they can be in the office by Monday. It’s especially suitable for young travellers.” The airline also prides itself on making destinations around Asia accessible to those in China’s Greater Bay Area.

“A lot of passengers from Shenzhen and Zhuhai come to Hong Kong to fly with us because those places don’t have direct flights to the destinations that we fly to,” says Mao. “We don’t traditionally follow demand. We proudly say that we create demand—we offer unique destinations to our adventurous customers that they may not think about. We like to surprise them.”

Mao has worked in the aviation industry for over 20 years, spending years in various roles and departments at Cathay Pacific before taking on her current role.

She held positions across services and operations, cargo, international affairs, customer experience and inflight products, sales and distribution, and was part of the team that developed and launched Cathay Pacific’s Premium Economy Class. “At one point, I was also in charge of selecting the inflight movies—it was the best job,” she says with a laugh.

She also trained as a flight attendant, which required taking all of the qualifications and passing all the safety tests. “I believe it’s important as a leader to know what the day-to-day job and responsibilities of your team are.” 

She served in this capacity on five flights, which she describes as “life changing”, as they were all rescue flights during the pandemic to repatriate Hongkongers stranded in other countries.

It’s something people don’t think of often, but beyond taking travellers on their next big adventure, one of an airline’s most important jobs is to bring people safely home.

“Sometimes in critical moments, people’s lives are in your hands. Planes reconnect people with their loved ones. That experience impacted me quite personally,” she says. “Planes bring people home. I remember doing the announcement and I said ‘We have arrived in Hong Kong— welcome home.’ It’s a moment that will stay with me forever.”

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