Cathay Pacific cuts losses from $21.6b to $5.5b loss

Despite this, the current restrictions in place for Hong Kong show a bleak outlook.

The sky showed signs of life as Cathay Pacific Airways cut its losses to $5.5b, an improvement compared to last year’s $21.6b loss.

Patrick Healy, Chairman, Cathay Pacific Airways called this a significant improvement in a webcast announcing several other financial results. 

Amongst those announced was an attributable profit of over $2b in the second half of 2021, which according to him, was an outstanding achievement.

Healy attributed this performance to two factors—the maximisation of all revenue opportunities in the cargo market and cost management over a two-year period. 

“First, the team’s agility in maximising all revenue opportunities in a very strong cargo market. Cargo revenue for the group for the year as a whole increased 28% to $35.8b."

"Secondly, highly effective cost management over a prolonged two-year period, including of course the very substantial savings that were realised during the restructuring of The Cathay Pacific Group in October 2020,” explained Healy.

The latest restrictions also posed by the Omicron variant also brought new impacts to the business. Only 2% of the airline’s pre-Covid passenger flight capacity were reported to be in operation, with the cargo flight capacity likely to hover at less than one-third of pre-COVID levels. 

These have resulted in a cash burn in the range of $1b to $1.5b per month, set to last until conditions improve. 

Meanwhile, available liquidity for the group was at $30.3b, higher than last year’s $28.6b.   

“We are also grateful to the Hong Kong SAR Government for agreeing to extend the drawdown date of their $7.8bn loan facility until June 2022, which has given us additional flexibility. This strong liquidity position gives us great confidence that we can overcome the ongoing challenges and emerge from this crisis as a more efficient and more competitive airline than we were before it,” said Healy.