Hong Kong's flag airline Cathay Pacific group said Wednesday that the group saw a net loss of over 9.86 billion Hong Kong dollars (over 1.27 billion U.S. dollars) for the first half of 2020 amid the COVID-19 pandemic.
At an online press conference, Chairman of Cathay Pacific group Patrick Healy released the group's interim results of 2020, saying that the pandemic had hard hit the global economy as well as the group's business.
In the first six months this year, Cathay Pacific and its subsidiary airline Cathay Dragon, two main airlines of the group, reported a loss after tax of around 7.36 billion Hong Kong dollars (949.69 million U.S. dollars), and the share of losses from subsidiaries and associates was about 2.5 billion Hong Kong dollars (323 million U.S. dollars).
Resulting from the extensive travel restrictions, border controls and quarantine arrangements in response to the pandemic, Cathay Pacific and Cathay Dragon carried a total of 4.4 million passengers in the first half this year, down 76 percent from the same period in 2019, and the passenger revenue decreased by 72.2 percent year on year to less than 10.4 billion Hong Kong dollars (1.34 billion U.S. dollars).
"In April and May we were carrying an average of only around 500 passengers a day," said Healy.
The group's results said the first half this year saw a considerable loss of available cargo capacity as a result of the extensive cuts of passenger flights, leading to around 667,000 tons carried by the two main airlines, down 31.9 percent year on year.
The cargo revenue, however, increased to over 11.17 billion Hong Kong dollars (1.44 billion U.S. dollars) in the first six months because of an imbalance between capacity and demand in the market, up 8.8 percent compared to the same period last year.
"Our group saw a strong cargo business in May and we believe it will continue to be competitive in the second half," said the group's CEO Augustus Tang.
Healy said with a global recession looming and geopolitical tensions intensifying, the aviation industry is expected to face with the biggest challenge the Cathay Pacific has ever witnessed.
"We do not expect to see a meaningful recovery in our passenger business for some time to come. We will continue to closely monitor market demand as we work towards progressively reintroducing passenger flights as appropriate." he said.
