Hong Kong-based Cathay Pacific recorded just 302 passengers in one day earlier this week. The carrier expects passenger numbers to stay below 1000 for the entirety of April.
Cathay Pacific has a fleet of over 150 aircraft ranging from the Airbus A350 to the Boeing 777. The carrier's average fleet age stands at around 8.9 years old.
Cathay Pacific Group Chief Customer and Commercial Officer Ronald Lam, in a news release confirmed that the carrier's passenger numbers were extremely low.
"Passenger demand dropped rapidly and tremendously in late March following the introduction of arrival restrictions on all non-resident visitors to Hong Kong, including transit passengers. On each of the last two days of March we carried fewer than 1,000 passengers only."
Indeed, Cathay Pacific has been one of the worst hit as a result of the coronavirus crisis. Having announced on 20 March that it would cut capacity by 96% for April, the carrier hasn't had it easy. Cathay Pacific first announced cuts on 23 January when it suspended service to Wuhan, the epicenter of the pandemic. On 28 January, Cathay Pacific said it would be gradually reducing service to the entirety of mainland China.
"We saw significant declines across all traffic types, though the drop in inbound passenger traffic was lessened in the third week of March, when we reinstated 13 flights to help residents and students from the UK and the US returning to Hong Kong," Lam continued.
In March, Cathay Pacific operated a total of 257 cargo-only services with passenger aircraft and expects to fly a similar number in April as well. Meanwhile on the passenger side of the business, while it would usually expect to transport 100,000 passengers a day, that number is now much lower. In April and May, the airline will operate just 3% of its initially scheduled capacity as it struggles to maintain reasonable load factors.
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