Cathay flies only 797 passengers a day as Covid squeeze persists

Hong Kong

CATHAY Pacific Airways expects to continue operating at about 2 per cent of pre-pandemic passenger capacity as long as Hong Kong, battling a rapidly worsening Covid-19 outbreak, keeps virus restrictions in place.

Hong Kong's main airline, which relies solely on international travel, carried 24,699 passengers in January, down 99.2 per cent from the same month in 2019, prior to the pandemic. Numbers averaged just 797 a day, while the load factor was 40 per cent.

"We are currently not seeing any signs of significant recovery in passenger travel demand," chief customer and commercial officer Ronald Lam said in a statement on Thursday (Feb 17).

Embattled Cathay has been issuing similarly bleak reports throughout most of the Covid crisis. Making matters worse now, rivals such as Singapore Airlines are quickly getting passengers back in the skies as borders elsewhere reopen and travel restrictions are eased.

Like Cathay, Singapore Airlines has no domestic market, yet its January passenger capacity was almost 50 per cent of pre-pandemic levels. Meanwhile, Dubai's Emirates returned to profitability surprisingly quickly and is in "good shape", president Tim Clark told Bloomberg Television on Thursday.

"We've had a very difficult start to 2022 with the accelerated spread of the Omicron variant and the further tightening of travel and operational restrictions, notably stricter quarantine requirements for Hong Kong-based aircrew," Lam said.

Hong Kong's Covid-19 rules mean most local aircrew must quarantine in a hotel for 7 or 14 days, an unpopular policy among flight staff, leaving the airline short of workers.

Cathay's cargo operations, which have been a valuable source of income through the crisis, were hurt last month by additional quarantine measures on aircrew that forced the airline to cancel long-haul services for seven days while it reviewed staff rostering arrangements. Cargo flight capacity will likely remain at less than a third of pre-Covid levels this quarter, Lam said. BLOOMBERG