Cathay PacificGroup chief customer and commercial officer, Ronald Lam, said today Cathay Pacific and regional subsidiary, Cathay Dragon, expected to be operating about 10% of pre-coronavirus pandemic passenger capacity until year end. Lam said capacity for 2021 is forecast to be below 50%. Read More » “Among the multiple scenarios studied, this one is the most optimistic we can responsibly adopt at this moment," Lam said in Cathay's monthly traffic report. "We assume we will be operating well below a quarter of pre-pandemic capacity in the first half of next year, but will see a recovery in the second half only assuming vaccines under development prove to be effective and are widely adopted in our key markets by summer 2021."
For September, the airline flew 47,061 passengers, up 31.5% from 35,773 in August. The September figures were down 98.1% over the same month a year earlier. Available seat kilometres (ASK) declined 91% year-on-year for the month, but were up 8.4% compared with August after Cathay resumed flights to a number of destinations, including Cebu and Perth during the month. Lam said students and transit passengers were large sources of traffic in September. Demand from the Mainland has gradually increased since the lifting of Hong Kong’s ban on ex-Chinese mainland transit travel in mid-August, Lam said. "Overall, transit passengers accounted for about 33% of our total traffic in September," he said.
AirAsia X deputy chairman, Lim Kian Onn, who is leading the airline's restructuring efforts, told Malaysia's The Star newspaper late last week the long-haul, LCC "has run out of money", with about 500 million ringgit (US$121 million) needed "to jumpstart the airline". "The company needs fresh capital. Whether this money comes from existing shareholders, new shareholders or from banks, we need capital. Obviously, banks will not finance the company without shareholders, both old and new, putting in fresh equity. So, a prerequisite is fresh equity," Lim told the newspaper.
Lim said negotiations with creditors about restructuring the airline's liabilities of 63.5 billion ringgit (US$15.3 billion) have been "tough". "It’s a tough call, but we are far from being a lost cause. Our latest conversations with major creditors in the last few days have been largely positive. They have been engaging, which is a good sign," he said.
China Eastern Airlines (CEA) flew 8.95 million passengers on its domestic network in September, a 1.22% year-on-year improvement from the same month in 2019. In its monthly traffic report, CEA said demand, or revenue passenger kilometres (RPK), was up 3.57% in September compared with a year ago and Available Seat Kilometres (ASKs) were 8.5% higher. With capacity increasing ahead of demand, load factor was lower by 3.7 percentage points, to 77.2%. "With the prevention and control of COVID-19 in China being continuously improved and social production and living order being steadily recovered, civil aviation in China has demonstrated a trend of steady recovery," CEA said in its monthly traffic report published late last week.
Air China said the number of domestic passengers rose 1.3%, to 7.78 million, in September, compared with 12 months earlier. Demand improved 0.1% year-on-year in the month and ASKs rose 5.6%. But passenger load factor declined 4.2 percentage points to 77.2%. "Since the third quarter, the domestic air passenger transport market has accelerated to recovery," Air China said in its monthly traffic report.
Former Air New Zealand (Air NZ) CEO, Christopher Luxon, has been elected to the New Zealand parliament after winning the Auckland-based seat of Botany in the country's general election held on Saturday. Luxon, who resigned from Air NZ in 2019 and has since decided to pursue a career in politics, ran as a candidate for the conservative National Party. He will sit on the opposition benches after the country’s labour government, led by prime minister, Jacinda Ardern, was elected for a second term.
