HONG KONG: As it battles to regain its pre-pandemic flight capacity, Hong Kong carrier Cathay Pacific on Wednesday recorded its first yearly operational profit since 2019.
Due to the city’s slow adoption of strict pandemic restrictions, like as enforced lodging quarantines and stringent testing procedures, the airline has struggled to catch up to regional rivals like Singapore Airlines.
Cathay Pacific faced three challenging years
While announcing the results, Chairman Patrick Healy said in a statement, “Cathay Pacific has faced three challenging years due to Covid-19, with 2022 very much being a year of two halves.”
According to the company’s statement released on Wednesday, it operated in December at a third of its pre-pandemic passenger flying capacity but anticipates increasing that to 70% by the end of 2023.
It declared an operating profit of HK$3.55 billion ($452 million) last year, but due to losses suffered by its affiliated companies, it had a loss attributable to shareholders of HK$6.5 billion.
As the pandemic hit in 2020, Cathay saw historic losses. Last year, as Hong Kong tightened travel regulations amid its worst-ever coronavirus outbreak, Cathay suffered yet another setback.
It transported 2.8 million passengers last year — roughly four times that of 2021 — which brought in $1.7 billion in revenue.
Ronald Lam, who assumed leadership of Cathay at the beginning of 2023, stated that the airline would strive to be the market leader for the “Greater Bay Area,” Beijing’s regional growth plan for Hong Kong and the neighboring cities in southern China.
The airline, last week, gave away more than 50,000 flights from Singapore to Hong Kong, the Philippines, and Thailand as part of the government’s promotion campaign for tourists, “Hello Hong Kong.”
Earlier, the company stated that it was “very encouraged by the good response” to this promotion campaign, with the tickets being snapped up within hours and long online queues.
The city’s airport in January received 2.1 million visitors, a considerable uptick compared with previous months. In January, Cathay’s flight attendant union started a work-to-rule strike after accusing the company of “offering stable and practicable working conditions” and competitive wages just a low priority.
At the time, the firm declared that most of the roster problems had been fixed and that flight operations would go as planned.
Nonetheless, Hong Kong still has a long way to go before reclaiming its critical regional transportation center position.
Almost 20 regional Asian airlines claimed in January that a lack of ground handlers prevented them from starting operations in the city. — AFP/APP
