Hactl's new chief bets on people. Here's why it works.

The switch from tech-first to people-first

Hong Kong Air Cargo Terminals is the world's busiest air-cargo facility. When Frosti Lau took over as chief executive after 20 years at Cathay Pacific, he didn't announce a software upgrade or an automation roadmap. He said he wanted to focus on people.

The move is quietly radical. For the past decade, every major terminal operator has followed the same playbook: automation first, people second. Smart conveyors, robotics, predictive algorithms. On paper, it's faster. In reality, it breaks down the moment something unexpected happens.

Lau's bet is that terminal operations are inherently unpredictable enough that the bottleneck isn't technology. It's whether your staff can make decisions in real time.

What this means for Canadian importers

For importers routing air-cargo through Hong Kong, release velocity is everything. A container from Rotterdam sitting at Port of Montreal might spend 2–3 days in the harbor before drayage begins. Air-freight doesn't have that buffer. Carriers like Cathay Pacific and Singapore Airlines route into Montreal and Vancouver on 24-hour windows. Miss your release slot, and your cargo sits another cycle. That's the difference between on-time delivery and two days late.

Here's where people-first ops matter. When a shipment hits an exam flag or a labeling issue, the tech stack can't resolve it. Your release time doesn't move until a person picks up the phone, talks to CBSA, understands the context, and makes a call. Lau's predecessor apparently ran the terminal like a pure logistics stack. Lau's saying: deploy experienced staff who can navigate the mess.

At FENGYE LOGISTICS, we see this every day on our dock. The difference between a 4-hour dock-to-stock and a 12-hour one isn't the conveyor speed. It's whether someone on the team knows the broker, knows the CBSA pattern, and can talk through a hold in 10 minutes instead of filing a formal notice and waiting three days for a response.

The staff retention piece

The broader question is whether terminals can actually run people-first at scale. Hactl is a 50-year-old facility with multiple operators competing for dock space. Lau isn't remaking the physical layout. He's saying the bottleneck is staff retention, decision-making authority, and trust.

What does that look like concretely?

• Staff aren't cycling out every 18 months
• Front-line teams have authority to call holds, override low-priority delays
• Release teams are staffed during variance, not trimmed to "optimal" levels
• Knowledge of airline-specific requirements lives with people, not in databases

The assumption behind tech-first operations is that expertise can be codified. In air-cargo, that's wrong. Every carrier has different rules. Every peak has different constraints. The people who run it need to understand context, not just execute a script.

For example, Cathay Pacific has specific documentation requirements that differ from Lufthansa, which differ from Singapore Airlines. A scanner and database can't resolve that. A person who's worked air-cargo for a decade can spot the problem in 30 seconds and route the shipment appropriately. That's the difference between "release delayed pending documentation clarification" and "approved, ready for drayage." Lau's bet is that retaining those people, and giving them authority to make decisions, is cheaper than replacing them every 18 months and re-training new staff on airline rules.

Will this approach stick?

Lau's move is also signal. If Hactl, one of the three busiest air-cargo terminals in the world, is shifting away from tech-first, others will watch. That matters for Canadian importers because terminal reliability affects routing decisions. If Hong Kong becomes more consistent, freight forwarding costs for HK-sourced cargo into Canada drop. If it stays chaotic, importers route through Singapore or shift to container-ship lead times.

For Canadian importers and forwarders, the question is whether this shift actually improves dock velocity. On paper, yes. A terminal run by people who understand the business, not just the systems, adapts faster to problems. Cathay's culture, where Lau spent 20 years, is reliability-obsessed, not speed-obsessed. That's different from some competitors. If Lau is importing that ethos into Hactl, the terminal probably gets more predictable, not necessarily faster. For importers in a 48-hour window, predictable is what you need.

The risk is that people-first operations only work if you're willing to pay for better staff and give them autonomy. That costs money. Shareholders expect margins. The moment margin pressure hits, the instinct is to cut labor and re-automate. Lau's bet only works if Cathay, Hactl's majority shareholder, is willing to protect that model through a down-cycle.

A model for Canadian terminals?

For operations like ours at FENGYE's in-bond cargo handling, this is instructive. We've built our services around the same principle: staff who understand CBSA patterns, broker relationships, and the specific constraints of each importer. It's not cheaper than pure-tech operations. It's better at 2 AM when you need a release and the broker is unreachable.

The other angle worth watching is whether Lau's approach will spread to port terminals in Canada. Vancouver Port Authority and Port of Montreal both operate under different constraints than Hactl—they're public institutions, not private operators. But the staffing and knowledge-retention problem is identical. If Lau proves that people-first operations work at Hactl, Canadian terminal operators will probably follow.

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This isn't soft management

One reality check: This isn't soft management in the HR sense. Lau isn't saying "let people work from home" or "trust the process." He's saying that dock operations require human judgment and that human judgment requires continuity. That's a very ops-first statement, not an HR-first one. It means higher costs, more accountability for people in decision-making roles, and less leeway for pure automation.

For importers considering air-cargo routing through Hong Kong, the signal is positive. A terminal run by someone who spent two decades in airline operations and believes in people-centric logistics is probably going to be more predictable than whatever came before.

The real test is what happens when volumes spike or a global disruption hits. That's when tech-heavy operations crumble and people-first ones scale. If Lau has built the right team, Hactl will handle the next big disruption better than it did the last one.

The hard part is that you won't know for 18–24 months. Terminal culture shifts slowly. But if Lau holds steady and staffing improves, HK-sourced cargo into Canada gets more reliable. That's worth tracking.