Cathay Pacific Group’s two main airlines, Cathay Pacific and Cathay Dragon have posted a combined unaudited loss of $581 million in the first four months of 2020.
In April, the carrier carried just 13,729 passengers, representing a 99.6% drop from 3.12 million passengers carried in April last year. The decline in passenger numbers reflects the 97% cut in its flight schedule, which it has extended until the last week in June.
Before the virus outbreak, the airline was carrying around 100,000 people a day.
According to a statement posted on its website, April’s revenue passenger kilometers fell 99.3% year on year, while available seat kilometers fell 97.3%, leading to a 62.3 percentage point drop in passenger load factor to 21.7%.
The Group’s financial performance includes losses from fuel-hedging contracts that increased as the price of jet fuel and oil fell, while its payments for a specific volume of fuel at a fixed cost remained higher than the market rate.
Since the emergence of the virus, the airline has taken various measures to remain afloat, including sending its workers on a three-week unpaid leave and taking the leave in turns on a voluntary basis, running from March to June.
Last month, the airline laid off 286 cabin crew in the U.S. and furloughed 201 pilots in Australia and Britain.
Since the suspension of international passenger flights, the airline resorted to cargo business, operating close to 500 cargo flights in April, doubling the number in March. I
The IATA (International Air Transport Association) has reported that airlines would suffer $314 billion in lost ticket sales in 2020, with $113 billion coming from the region’s airlines.
Cathay Pacific is the flag carrier of Hong Kong, with its head office and main hub at Hong Kong International Airport. The airline’s operations and subsidiaries have scheduled passenger and cargo services to more than 190destinations in more than 60 countries worldwide, including codeshares and joint ventures.
Cathay Pacific is the world’s tenth-largest airline measured by sales, and fourteenth largest measured by market capitalization. It is also the fifth-largest cargo airline in the world.
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