Cathay Pacific Airways reports narrowed losses for 2021 fiscal year

January 24th 2022

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In unaudited consolidated accounts for its full-year to December 31, 2021, Cathay Pacific Group has announced it expects to record a consolidated loss attributed to shareholders of “approximately” HK$5.6 billion-HK$6.1 billion (US$780 million-US$784 million). Read More » The result “compares favourably” with losses of HK$21.6 billion in the previous 12 months, a company statement said earlier today.

The group’s financial performance “was primarily driven by strong cargo demand, high cargo yield and load factors together with continued focus on effective cash and cost management”, it said.

CEO Augustus Tang said: “We flew 717,059 passengers in 2021. This compares with 4.6 million passengers [carried] in 2020 and 35.2 million in 2019.

“In late December and then early January, the Hong Kong SAR (Special Administrative Region) government further tightened aircrew quarantine requirements and restrictions. These measures will have a significant impact on our passenger and cargo capacity.”

Cargo for January has been forced to reduce to 20% of its pre-pandemic capacity and passenger flights to 2% of 2019 levels, the statement said.

“According to our preliminary assessment, we expect these capacity levels to result in an operating cash burn of HK$1 billion to HK$1.5 billion per month from February,” Tang said.

Cathay Pacific carried 92,219 passengers in December, an increase of 130.6% compared with 12 months earlier, but a 96.9% decrease over December two years ago. The airline transported 134,691 tonnes of cargo for the month, an improvement of 12% from December 2020, but a 24.1% decrease compared with the same period in 2019.