(TAN): Cathay Pacific has released its traffic figures for December 2020 that continued to reflect the airline’s substantial capacity reductions in response to significantly reduced demand as well as travel restrictions and quarantine requirements in place in Hong Kong and other markets amid the ongoing global Covid-19 pandemic.
Cathay Pacific carried a total of 39,989 passengers last month, a decrease of 98.7% compared to December 2019. The month’s revenue passenger kilometres (RPKs) fell 98.1% YoY. Passenger load factor dropped by 66.6 percentage points to 18.4%, while capacity, measured in available seat kilometres (ASKs), decreased by 91.2%.
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For 2020 as a whole, the number of passengers carried by Cathay Pacific and Cathay Dragon dropped by 86.9% against a 78.8% decrease in capacity and an 85.1% decrease in RPKs, as compared to 2019.
Cathay Pacific Group Chief Customer and Commercial Officer Ronald Lam said: “Our passenger business continues to face significant challenges. We increased capacity by about 8% in December compared to November as we gradually added capacity on flights serving North America, the South Pacific and some regional routes. Overall, average daily passenger numbers and load factor in December both remained low at 1,290 and 18.4%, respectively.
“In the first half of December, we saw some good demand for student travel from the UK to Hong Kong for the festive holiday period. However, our passenger business was notably impacted in the second half of the month when the Hong Kong SAR Government implemented a ban on flights from the UK to Hong Kong on December 22 amid the surge of Covid-19 cases in the UK, together with the change from 14 days’ to 21 days’ mandatory quarantine in designated hotels for arrivals into Hong Kong. On December 28, we carried just 490 passengers in total — the lowest number in a single day since 15 June. While some flights from Hong Kong to the UK have resumed as of January, flights from the UK to Hong Kong remain suspended,” Lam said.
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“Effective later within February 2021, the Hong Kong SAR Government will implement a new 14-day hotel quarantine plus 7-day medical surveillance requirement for both our Hong Kong-based pilots and cabin crew,” Lam added.
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