Cathay Pacific carried less than 40,000 passengers last month, a year-on-year decrease of nearly 99%. The new quarantine arrangement may cause an additional 400 million yuan monthly

Financial News

Written by: Zhang Weilun

2021-01-25 17:37

Last update date: 2021-01-25 17:40

Cathay Pacific (0293) announced the passenger and cargo volume data for December last year.

The number of passengers carried in the month was 39,900, a year-on-year drop of 98.7%, revenue passenger kilometers fell 98.1% year-on-year, and passenger traffic dropped 66.6 percentage points to 18.4%.

The capacity, calculated by the number of available seat kilometers, fell by 91.2%.

Cathay Pacific pointed out that the number of passengers carried dropped by 86.9% last year, the capacity contracted by 78.8%, and the number of passenger kilometers of revenue fell by 85.1% year-on-year.

In terms of freight, 2.18 million metric tons of cargo and mail were carried in December last year, down 32.3% year-on-year; the ton-kilometers of cargo and mail revenue fell 23.7% year-on-year, and the load factor rose 13.9 percentage points to 80.3%.

Based on the available cargo and mail ton-kilometers, the capacity is reduced by 36.9%.

Last year, Cathay Pacific’s cargo capacity dropped by 34.1% year-on-year, capacity dropped by 35.5%, and revenue from cargo and mail ton-kilometers fell by 26.5% year-on-year.

Cathay Pacific Customer and Commercial President Lin Shaobo said that the challenges faced by the passenger business continue to be severe.

During the month, flights to and from North America, South Pacific and some regional routes will be added, and the capacity will increase by about 8% compared with November.

Overall, the average daily passenger capacity and passenger load factor in December were at a low level, at 1,290 and 18.4% respectively.

Only 490 passengers were picked up on the 28th of last month

He also pointed out that in early December, the demand for British students returning to Hong Kong during the winter vacation has increased.

However, the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region government banned flights from the United Kingdom to Hong Kong on December 22, in response to the worsening of the local epidemic, and the extension of the quarantine period for arriving passengers at designated hotels from the 14th to the 21st, etc., was a serious blow to December. Passenger business in the second half of the year.

On December 28, the company only carried 490 passengers, which was a single-day low since June 15.

Cathay Pacific resumed operation of some flights from Hong Kong to London in January, but flights from the UK to Hong Kong are still suspended.

Starting from February 2021, the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region Government will require Cathay Pacific's pilots and cabin attendants to undergo quarantine for 14 days and medical surveillance for 7 days.

The new regulations will seriously affect the company's passenger and freight service capabilities, and the actual extent of the impact has yet to be determined. It will depend on a number of factors, including the effectiveness of the company's response measures, such as flexible deployment of human resources.

At this stage, it is preliminary assessed that in response to the new regulations, it may be necessary to reduce the current passenger capacity by about 60% and freight capacity by about 25%; the monthly operating cash consumption will be about 1 to 1.5 billion yuan from the current one, an additional increase of about 300 to 400 million yuan .

Cathay Pacific Covid-19