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Hong Kong’s “stringent crew quarantine requirements” add to Cathay Pacific Group operating woes
April 16th 2021
Cathay Pacific Group chief customer and commercial officer, Ronald Lam, said today the airline's passenger capacity declined 47% month-on-month for March amid significant challenges from the pandemic. Read More » "With the tightened crew quarantine requirements in Hong Kong, we only managed to maintain a skeleton schedule in March, operating passenger services to 18 destinations," Lam said in the company’s monthly traffic report. "Average daily passenger numbers decreased even further to 598, compared with 755 [per day] in February." The airline flew 18,539 passengers in the month, down 12.3%, from 21,134 travellers transported in February and 94% below its 311,128 customers in March 2020. Hong Kong's "stringent crew quarantine requirements" constrained Cathay's cargo network. The sector recorded a 39.4% year-on-year drop in capacity despite efforts to operate more cargo-only passenger flights and chartered freighter flights by the group’s Air Hong Kong subsidiary, Lam said. He welcomed the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (HKSAR) government's plan to use vaccine bubbles as the basis for introducing relaxation measures, including those relating to cross-boundary travel.
The lifting of mandatory quarantine requirements for fully vaccinated Hong Kong-based aircrew on freighters and cargo-only passenger flights from today would have a "positive impact on our cargo business while also progressively reducing our monthly operating cash burn", Lam said.
