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Cathay Pacific chairman has “utmost confidence” in airline's long-term future
March 10th 2022
Cathay Pacific Group chairman, Patrick Healy, said the Hong Kong-based carrier was facing many challenges from the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, but he had no doubt about the airline's long-term prospects. Read More » "We have the utmost confidence in the long-term future of Cathay Pacific," Healy said in the company's calendar 2021 financial results. The airline reported a HK$5.5 billion (US$707 million) net loss for the year, an improvement from a net loss of HK$21.6 billion in 2020. "We have been privileged to fly out of Hong Kong as its home airline for the past 75 years. As those years have shown, Cathay Pacific is an enduring airline." Healy said he had "no way of knowing" when crippling restrictions such as strict quarantine requirements for flight crews and the long list of markets where flights to Hong Kong were banned would change.
The results presentation showed Cathay had 74 aircraft parked at December 31, 15 fewer than the 89 stored by the airline a year earlier. The company was profitable in the second half of calendar 2021, with a net profit of HK$2 billion for the six months to December 31. There was positive cash generation in the half of about HK$200 million a month. From February, company has anticipated it will have a monthly operating cash burn of HK$1 billion to HK$1.5 billion.
"There is significant amount of pent-up demand. In parallel to managing the current challenges, we are preparing for the recovery when it comes," Cathay Pacific chief financial officer, Rebecca Sharpe, said at the company's financial results briefing. "We remain fully committed to keeping Hong Kong safely connected to the world and to maintaining the flow of people and cargo going to the rest of the world."
