29/04/2020
- Carrier targets return of daily services to major Asian cities and more frequent long-haul services
- Airline to monitor global situation and adjustments may be made ‘as necessary’
A Cathay Pacific employee stands near the check-in desks at a virtually deserted Hong Kong International Airport. Photo: Sam Tsang
Cathay Pacific Airways has signalled its intent to start reversing its near-total grounding of aircraft because of
the coronavirus pandemic, and plans to start increasing its number of passenger flights in the last week of June.
The airline said it hoped to add more long-haul destinations, make flights more frequent, and reinstate some major Asian cities to its daily schedule for the first time in several months, “subject to government travel restrictions”.
Cathay scaled its operations back to a skeleton schedule of 3 per cent of services in early April, and that was extended until June 20. The newly announced increases would take that up to 5 per cent.
The global airline industry has been rocked by the pandemic, which triggered a collapse in air travel demand amid severe travel restrictions and tough quarantine measures.
Tracking the massive impact of the Covid-19 pandemic on the world’s airline industry in early 2020
Singapore Airlines, another of Asia’s major carriers, said last week it would maintain a 96 per cent reduction in flights until the end of June.
Cathay, which has 236 aircraft, currently operates long-haul flights to London Heathrow, Los Angeles, Vancouver and Sydney twice a week, but will increase that to five times a week.
On top of that, Amsterdam, Frankfurt, San Francisco and Melbourne are among the long-haul destinations set to return three times a week.
With regional routes currently operating three times a week, including Tokyo Narita, Taipei, Beijing and Singapore, Asian routes will increase to a daily service. Osaka and Seoul would also return to the network, too.
“We will continue to monitor the developing situation and further adjustments may be made as necessary,” the airline said.
Coronavirus: ban on non-residents leaves Hong Kong airport virtually deserted
Earlier this month, Cathay’s budget unit HK Express extended its total grounding until June 18, having been on hiatus since March 23.
Meanwhile, Boeing has added to warnings of a very slow recovery in air travel, with Dave Calhoun, its CEO, saying demand may not return to 2019 levels for two to three years.
Cathay Pacific’s daily passenger volume has collapsed from regular previous peaks of 100,000 to less than 1,000 in April. Over the past two months, the company has been running more than 250 extra pairs of cargo-only passenger flights to maintain air freight capacity, much of which is accounted for by passenger services.
In a bid to cut costs, most of the Cathay Pacific Group’s 34,200 staff have taken three weeks of unpaid leave. Also, 433 cabin crew in the US and Canada were told they would be laid off, while about 200 pilots in the UK, Australia have been furloughed.
The International Air Transport Association, which revised down pandemic-related revenue losses for the global sector to US$314 billion (HK$2.4 trillion) two weeks ago, said last week the Hong Kong aviation market would take a US$7.5 billion hit this year, a 27 per cent increase on the previous estimate. That equates to a 59 per cent decline in air travel demand, or a loss of almost 31 million passengers, in 2020.
BOCOM International, a financial services company, forecast in a report on Monday that the city’s aviation sector would lose HK$65.2 billion in revenue in 2020, yet Cathay Pacific could emerge as a winner if it survived largely unscathed, given the weakness of rivals at home and in the region plus its dominant position in Hong Kong.
“Hong Kong aviation is at the most critical juncture in its history. Though calamitous, Covid-19 is set to reshape Hong Kong’s aviation industry for the years, possibly decades, to come,” said transportation analyst Luya You.
“Covid-19’s sweeping blows now offer a blank slate for remaining players to regain lost leadership or gain new markets. If [Cathay Pacific] can survive intact from Covid, the carrier could enjoy winner-takes-all growth trajectory in the years following [2020].”
Source: SCMP
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09/09/2019
- Merkel makes the case on sensitive issues in Beijing without being offensive, observer says
German Chancellor Angela Merkel (centre) talks to staff at manufacturer Webasto during a visit in Wuhan on Saturday. Photo: EPA-EFE
German Chancellor Angela Merkel may be slowly declining in influence in European politics but she remains the EU’s strongest voice in dealing with China, analysts said after her latest trip to China last week.
During the two-day visit, Merkel and Chinese President Xi Jinping discussed the sensitive topic of Hong Kong and the social credit system in China.
German diplomats also averted a plan by Chinese officials to scrap a joint press conference by Merkel and Chinese Premier Li Keqiang out of concerns that it could be dominated by questions about the escalating protests in Hong Kong.
Two sources told the South China Morning Post that the Chinese side initially suggested not letting journalists ask questions during the press conference. German diplomats persisted, saying that Merkel would hold her own press conference to take media questions, the sources said.
Germany’s Angela Merkel renews call for peaceful resolution to Hong Kong protests
After talks with the Chinese president and premier, Merkel said Beijing had listened to her views about resolving the Hong Kong conflict without violence, adding: “This is important.”
She said she also pressed the European Union’s position that the Sino-British Joint Declaration on Hong Kong remained effective, countering Beijing’s assertion that the 1984 document has ceased to be valid.
“Merkel navigated the narrow line to raise these sensitive issues without being overly offensive,” said Jan Weidenfeld, of the Berlin-based Mercator Institute for China Studies.
Joerg Wuttke, president of the EU Chamber of Commerce in China, said Merkel’s biggest achievement was to raise the issue about the social credit system in China, a policy that aims to rank every individual and corporate entity based on their compliance with state-stipulated social norms.
“It is important to us that she makes the Chinese leadership aware that the German business community would like to get better briefed and prepared for this major change in company compliance by the Chinese authorities,” Wuttke said. “Merkel was the first foreign leader to do so.”
Despite Merkel’s tough approach, China’s foreign ministry was full of praise for the German leader’s visit, saying both sides were “satisfied” with the outcomes.
“This is Chancellor Merkel’s 12th China visit, so she should be one of the Western leaders who visited China the most times and knows China the best,” ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying said on Monday.
Hong Kong is a matter for China, Premier Li Keqiang tells Angela Merkel
Back home, however, German media and businesses remained sceptical about the future.
Bild, the country’s biggest-circulation newspaper, has been following closely the arrest of Hong Kong pro-democracy activist Joshua Wong Chi-fung, who was detained at Hong Kong airport on his way to Berlin at the newspaper’s invitation. Wong was later cleared to travel abroad.
Several newspapers have put pressure on Merkel to speak out for Hong Kong, with one calling on her to replace a stop in mainland China with one in the former British colony, which she refused.
On the business side, German businesses also urged Merkel to caution Beijing against sending troops to Hong Kong out of concerns that the lucrative Chinese market would become subject to international sanctions.
Another concern is the slow pace of structural reforms that would open up Chinese markets to foreign businesses.
Source: SCMP
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