Cathay Pacific (0293) announced that it is tentatively expected to record a loss attributable to shareholders of about 5.6 billion to 6.1 billion yuan in 2021.
The company pointed out that although the loss is expected to be huge, it is better than the loss attributable to shareholders of 21.6 billion yuan for the year ended December 2020. The improvement is mainly due to strong freight demand, high freight yield and load factor, and the company's continued effective management of cash and cash flow. cost.
In addition, the 2020 annual results include one-off expenses such as impairment and corporate restructuring, which will also be significantly reduced in 2021.
Cathay Pacific carried 92,219 passengers in December, up 130.6% from the same period in 2020, but down 96.9% from pre-pandemic levels in December 2019.
For the full year of 2021, passengers carried decreased by 84.5% compared with 2020, capacity decreased by 61.8%, and revenue passenger kilometers decreased by 79.5%.
In terms of cargo, Cathay Pacific carried 134,000 metric tons of cargo in December, a 12% increase from the same month in 2020, but a 24.1% decrease from December 2019.
For the full year, cargo capacity increased by 0.1% compared to 2020, but capacity decreased by 10.9%, while cargo revenue tonne kilometers decreased by 1.1%.
Only 717,000 passengers were carried throughout the year
Chief Executive Deng Jianrong said that passenger business for the full year 2021 will remain weak due to travel restrictions and strict quarantine requirements.
In 2021, Cathay Pacific will carry a total of 717,000 passengers, reuniting families and transporting international students to and from campus.
By comparison, Cathay Pacific carried 4.6 million passengers in 2020 and 35.2 million in 2019.
In addition, Cathay Pacific successfully delivered more than 120 million doses of COVID-19 vaccine in 2021, including more than 13.3 million doses in a single day.
Since the start of the pandemic, the Group's airlines have shipped more than 165 million doses of various COVID-19 vaccines worldwide.
Deng Jianrong added that Cathay Pacific has taken decisive actions to improve the company's monthly cash consumption from HK$2.5 billion to 3 billion in the first half of 2020 to a generally positive cash flow in the second half of 2021.
Tightening travel restrictions expected to burn between 1 billion and 1.5 billion in cash per month from February
Tang Jianrong continued to say that the Hong Kong SAR government further tightened travel restrictions at the end of December and early January last year, and the quarantine requirements for crew members, which affected the company's passenger and cargo capacity.
The Group will try its best to add more cargo services where circumstances permit to maintain Hong Kong's status as an international aviation hub; however, in January this year, Cathay Pacific was only able to operate about 20% of its cargo capacity and about 2% of its passenger capacity before the epidemic.
He also pointed out that Cathay Pacific's business will undoubtedly be affected by the reduction in capacity, and the potential impact of the measures on the company's operations and costs is currently being assessed.
According to preliminary assessment, if the above capacity level is used, it is expected that the monthly operating cash consumption will be 1 billion to 1.5 billion yuan from February.
Tang Jianrong pointed out, "In terms of passenger transport, we will try our best to maintain passenger connections between Hong Kong and major destinations, but the number of passenger flights will be reduced due to the circuit breaker mechanism of destinations and flights. Passenger flights to mainland China will remain unchanged as a whole, but other Passenger capacity on the route will be reduced to ensure continued compliance with government quarantine requirements. At the same time, we will utilize the passenger capacity of Hong Kong Express, our low-cost subsidiary, to maintain connectivity between Hong Kong and parts of Asia. Tie."