‘Learned a lesson’: Hong Kong’s Cathay Pacific Airways pushes back target for restoring pre-pandemic capacity by 3 months

The company revealed on Wednesday that it made a net profit of HK$9.78 billion (US$1.3 billion) last year after a net loss of HK$6.62 billion in 2022, marking a strong post-pandemic recovery and ending a string of hefty deficits.

CEO Ronald Lam Siu-por said the company had taken a prudent approach in restoring its passenger flight capacity to pre-pandemic levels by pushing back the timeline by three months from the end of 2024 to the first quarter the next year. That followed a spate of flight cancellations between December and February.

“The main reason was because of the flight cancellation incident, we learned a lesson and want to take a prudent approach and made the adjustment to the timeline in restoring flight capacity,” Lam said.

Hong Kong’s tourism sector recovered more slowly than the government expected in 2023, with flight capacity limitations a factor.

Lam admitted earlier that management had underestimated the number of reserve pilots needed to cover a higher level of seasonal illness and responded to the issue by cutting hundreds of flights between December and February to ensure smooth operations during Lunar New Year.

Cathay chief operations and service delivery officer Alex McGowan said there was a shortfall of 500 pilots across premium carrier Cathay Pacific and budget unit HK Express. The company had 2,900 pilots and needed to have 3,400 in place to fulfil the target of 100 per cent pre-Covid capacity, he said. He noted the figure of 3,400 was even lower than the number in October 2020.