Cathay Pacific Group has released combined Cathay Pacific and Cathay Dragon traffic figures for April 2020 that reflected the airlines’ substantial 97% 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 and Cathay Dragon carried a total of 13,729 passengers last month, a decrease of 99.6% compared to April 2019. The month’s revenue passenger kilometers fell 99.3% year-on-year. Passenger load factor plummeted by 62.3 points to 21.7%, while capacity decreased by 97.3%.
In the first four months of 2020, the number of passengers carried dropped by 64.4% against a 49.9% decrease in capacity and a 59.1% decrease in RPKs, as compared to the same period for 2019.
Cathay Pacific Group Chief Customer and Commercial Officer Ronald Lam said: “The COVID-19 pandemic continues to impact us in an unprecedented way. Year-todate up to April, we made an unaudited loss of HK$4.5 billion (US$590 million) at the full-service airline level (Cathay Pacific and Cathay Dragon) and the financial outlook continues to be very bleak for the coming few months at least.