The novel coronavirus pandemic has taken a heavy toll on Cathay Pacific Airways’ operations, with the city’s flag carrier Cathay Pacific and the group’s wholly owned subsidiary Cathay Dragon posting a combined unaudited loss of HK$4.5 billion in the first four months of this year.
The pandemic has continued to impact the airline in an “unprecedented way” and the financial outlook remains “very bleak” for the next few months at least, the group’s chief customer and commercial officer Ronald Lam said in a filing with the Hong Kong Stock Exchange on Friday.
In April alone, the group’s passenger capacity tumbled 99.6 percent compared with the same month in 2019. Passenger demand continued to fall in April with the number travelers carried by Cathay Pacific dropping to around 500 per day
From January to April, Cathay Pacific’s passenger load plunged by between 64.4 percent and almost 50 percent over the same period last year, as the pandemic grounded airlines worldwide and Hong Kong International Airport halted transit services, while outbound traffic was reduced to a trickle.
In April alone, the group’s passenger capacity tumbled 99.6 percent compared with the same month in 2019. Passenger demand continued to fall in April with the number travelers carried by Cathay Pacific dropping to around 500 per day.
“The ban on transit traffic through Hong Kong, together with minimal demand for outbound travel, meant that the majority of our very limited traffic came from inbound travelers, notably, from North America and the UK,” Lam said.
With no immediate signs of improvement, Hong Kong’s flag carrier expects its average daily passenger capacity to stay at about 500 in May, while business and leisure travel will remain severely impacted for the foreseeable future.
Cathay Pacific has said it will slightly raise its passenger flight capacity from 3 percent in May to 5 percent next month, subject to a potential relaxation of the SAR government’s restrictions to curb the spread of COVID-19.
Last month, the airline laid off 286 cabin crew based in the United States and furloughed 201 pilots based in Australia and Britain.
For cargo traffic, Cathay Pacific and Cathay Dragon carried 84,634 tons of freight and mail last month -- 48.3 percent less than in April last year. The airline operated more than 500 pairs of cargo-only and passenger flights -- more than doubled than in March.
The International Air Transport Association has warned that the health crisis would see global airline passenger revenues dive 55 percent, or US$314 billion, this year. The Asia-Pacific region, in particular, will see the largest revenue drop of US$113 billion, and passenger demand would tumble by half, year-on-year.
Lam said it will be a much more prolonged recovery for the global aviation industry, and international travel demand will only return to pre-pandemic levels in a few years.
Shares of Cathay Pacific Airways lost 0.56 percent to HK$8.85 apiece on Friday
