Addendum
Cathay Pacific cuts capacity as passenger traffic tumbles
December 1st 2019
Cathay Pacific Airways has revised downwards its planned capacity increase for 2020 as passenger numbers declined for the fourth month in November. Read More » At press time, Hong Kong had entered its seventh month of civil protests and unrest, a situation that particularly has impacted the travel and hospitality industries of the Special Administrative Region.
| 'Looking forward, we continue to see a significant shortfall in inbound Hong Kong advance bookings, particularly from mainland China and other regional markets, compared with the same snapshot last year' |
| Ronald Lam Cathay Pacific Group chief customer and commercial officer |
“In light of the immediate commercial challenges we are facing, we have reluctantly made the decision to reduce our seat capacity in 2020 by 1.4% year-on-year as opposed to our original plan of 3.1% growth, meaning that for the first time in a long while our airlines will reduce in size,” Cathay Pacific Group chief customer and commercial officer, Ronald Lam, said in a company statement.
In November, Cathay Pacific and Cathay Dragon carried 2,623,764 passengers, 9% fewer than in the same month a year ago. Passenger load factor was 80.1% for the month, a drop of 3.2 percentage points over November 2018.
Lam said: “November continued to be very challenging for both Cathay Pacific and Hong Kong with sentiment for travel still weak. Our inbound Hong Kong traffic dropped 46% compared with the same period in 2018 – a further slowdown from the 35% drop in October.”
Outbound traffic was down 8% against the same time last year – a slight improvement over previous months, Lam said.
“Our increasing reliance on transit traffic through Hong Kong, which has been less impacted, together with intense competition, has meant overall yield has remained under significant pressure,” he said.
The group’s regional routes, in particular mainland China and Northeast Asia, were continuing to experience weak demand for travel into Hong Kong. Travel sentiment also “was soft” on routes to and from the U.S. before Thanksgiving week, a traditionally strong period for premium class travel, Lam said.
“There were a few bright spots in the network such as our India routes, which remained robust and generated good demand between India and North America. Europe to Southwest Pacific, an important transit stream for the airline’s network, also remained healthy,” he said.
