Duncan Bluck

Early life and joining the Swires

Bluck was born in Shanghai on 19 March 1927. His father Thomas was a draper's assistant in Leicester as a young man. He joined the department store, Whiteaway, Laidlaw & Co. and was sent to its Shanghai branch. Duncan was named after Major General Sir John Duncan, commander of the Shanghai Defence Force.

Duncan was sent to a boarding school, Taunton School in England in 1939, right before the outbreak of the Second World War. His parents were later interned at the Lunghua camp in Shanghai. Duncan did not see them again until 1945. When he met his mother off a ship he brought a photograph in case he did not recognise her. In 1944, he joined the Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve and served in the Mediterranean and Far East until he was demobilised in 1947.

After the war, he decided to join the British Far East trading firm Butterfield & Swire. He was interviewed by Jock Swire in London in early 1948 and was sent by Sunderland flying boat to Hong Kong. He was involved with shipping, mostly in Japan when it was under the military rule from 1948 to 1953.

On his first leave, Bluck was engaged with Stella and married in March 1952. The couple was known to be kind to the junior staff.

Cathay Pacific career

A carerr-changing opportunity came In 1953, when Bluck was sent to Bangkok to open a new branch for the Cathay Pacific Airways. At the time, the fleet consisted of only two DC-3s and one DC-4 Skymaster. The DC-4 operated the Hong Kong-Bangkok-Singapore route five times a day and a weekly Hong Kong-Bangkok-Calcutta flight.

In 1954, Bluck took up the position of commercial manager of the Cathay Pacific at the age of 27, the airline’s most senior non-engineering post. During his spell, he was able to acquire the northbound routes at the time the routes from Hong Kong to Mainland China, Taiwan and Japan were given by the government to Hong Kong Airways (HKA), a subsidiary of the British Overseas Airways Corporation (BOAC). The HKA had to sellits fleet and chartered out its traffic rights to the American Northwest Airlines after it lost the Mainland market. Bluck foresaw the potential of the Japanese market, and thus he asked for the northbound rights from the government, unless HKA flew its own planes. In 1959, the BOAC swapped HKA for a part of the shares in the Cathay Pacific as predicted by Bluck, and thus opened the Japanese and Taiwanese market to Cathay.

At the time the boss of the Swire Group, Jock Swire was knocked out of the Hong Kong-Sydney route by Qantas, the Australian state carrier. Bluck belonged to the pro-expansion lobby with Bill Knowles, opposed to the anti-expansionists including Jock Browne and John Browne. John Bremridge, the managing director held a middle position but leaned towards Jock-like caution. Bluck gave a vision of global expansionism in a report he wrote after a five-week tour in North America in 1961, pointing out the potential business opportunity in the United States.

In 1962, Cathay Pacific acquired its first jet aircraft, the Convair 880M and formed a joint venture air catering company with the Peninsula Group. The partnership provided the impetus to take on catering for other airlines which eventually led to the founding of the Cathay Pacific Catering Services. In April 1964, Bluck joined the Board of the Cathay Pacific Airways.

In 1968, Bluck was sent to Nassau to take over as chairman of the Bahamas Airways, which Swire in conjunction with P&O and Blue Funnel acquired from the BOAC. During his two-year chairmanship, the airways crumpled financially as the Bahamian government exclusively licensed the national carrier BAL to fly long haul routes. Swire had to put the airline into voluntary liquidation as a result.

Cathay and Swires Taipan

Bluck returned to Hong Kong in January 1971 as the managing director of Cathay Pacific. Bluck persuaded the company to introduce its first long-haul Boeing 707s and its first wide-bodied aircraft, the Lockheed TriStar in 1973 and 1975 respectively. With the new aircraft, Cathay was able to expand its route network substantially. In 1976, the airline started its first expansion by flying to Bahrain.

Bluck aimed to expand the airline's network to London, which was monopolised by the British Airways by that time. Equipped with Boeing 747, Cathay launched its first challenge with Caledonian Airways (B-Cal) and the low-cost carrier, Laker Airways. After a series of hearing before the Hong Kong's Air Transport Licensing Authority, licences were granted to Cathay Pacific and B-Cal. However, the CCA in London revoked Cathay's licence, on the basis that the B-Cal's DC-10 was more suitable to operate the route. Swire appealed to the Minister of State for Trade. All three carriers were given licences at the end as a compromise. On the next day, Bluck's team hanged up the huge banners with the message "Cathay Pacific flies to London" as a sign of success. Following the London route, the company subsequently acquired routes to North America.

On 1 January 1981, Bluck was appointed chairman, the taipan of the Swire in Hong Kong, and served simultaneously as chairman of all the major Swire companies in Hong Kong. Under his spell, Bluck was known for his determined focus and perfectionism, qualities particularly admired by his Chinese colleagues. During his time, the company expanded in particular of the property field. By the end of Bluck’s tenure in 1984, Cathay Pacific had been transformed into a major international carrier. He was also the director of the Hongkong and Shanghai Banking Corporation, chairman of the Hong Kong Tourist Association and the English Schools Federation and member of the financial committee of the University of Hong Kong. In 1984, he was awarded Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE).

British and English Tourist Authorities

He retired from Swire in April 1984 and joined the parent board of John Swire & Sons (JS&S) in London. He remained heavily involved with Cathay Pacific and Swire Pacific until he stepped down from the board of the Swire Group in June 1998. In London, he was also appointed chairman of the British Tourist Authority and the English Tourist Board. Bluck was announced by Minister of State for Trade and Industry Norman Lamont as “a tough businessman able to… achieve the economies we want”. His attempt to bring the Scottish and Welsh Tourist Boards together met strong opposition, but he was an effective spokesman when the Americans stayed away from Britain in mid 1986 after the Thatcher government supported the US bombing of Libya. He was reappointed until 1990, and was praised by another minister as “a breath of fresh air, bringing a Hong Kong can-do attitude to a rather sleepy industry”. For his services hew was appointed Commander of the Order of the British Empire in 1990.

Residing in Kent, he became the chairman of the Kent Economic Development Board, a member of the Court of the Kent University, and a governor of Marlborough House School at Hawkhurst.

Personal life and death

Bluck was a keen yachtsman, regularly competing in Hong Kong-Macau races during his residence in Hong Kong. he had also sailed in Yokohama Bay until he was arrested by US coastguards. He settled in Kent after he returned to England. In later years he had a house in the South of France, where he sailed his last yacht, Stella Maris.

He married Stella Murdoch in 1952, whom he met at the Hong Kong Yacht Club when he leapt through a window into the ballroom costumed as a pirate. The couple had one son and three daughters, Penny, Beth, Ali and Michael. He was also chairman and president of the Cystic Fibrosis Trust, as his eldest granddaughter having been afflicted with the condition.

Bluck died on 6 October 2015 at the age of 88 after a long illness.