Cathay Pacific - known as the flag carrier of Hong Kong announced their annual results on 10th March. "The Cathay Pacific Group experienced the most challenging 12 months of its more than 70-year history in 2020. COVID-19, and the resultant travel restrictions and quarantine requirements in place around the world, brought about an unprecedented disruption of the global air travel market and the repercussions have been huge. The International Air Transport Association (IATA) estimates that global passenger traffic will not return to pre-COVID-19 levels until 2024," was announced by Patrick Healy, chairman of the CPA group. The pandemic gives a hard impact on the aviation industry, along with the social unrest in 2019, Cathay has become one of the airlines which suffers the hardest impact among most airlines. Last October, Cathay announced 8500 job cuts and immediate closure of their regional brand Cathay Dragon as a plan of restructuring the company. Besides the carrier also did a wrong step on the contract of fuel hedging, therefore it causes a 3.02 billion loss on the annual report.

Due to the pandemic, the demand for personal protective equipment and masks has raised, Cathay Pacific and Air Hong Kong have shipped more freight to different ports with their jet's belly and freighters, providing temporary service to Tasmania and Pittsburgh. As the carrier faces the growing amount of cargo, Cathay removes economy class seats from 6 B777-300ER for extra "Cargo Only" service. Moreover, they also fly A350 to different destinations with cargo in bulk. Enter the year 2021, the mass production of the COVID vaccine has started, Cathay has already transported 1 million doses of Sinovac from Beijing, and 1 million doses of Pharma/BioNTech(Pfizer) vaccines to Hong Kong. Cathay also transported 800 thousand doses of vaccine to Mexico.

According to the report, the amount of passengers who travels on Cathay is only 25% compared to the same year of 2019"s data. Due to the low demand for air travel, Cathay has already sent 50+ jets to Alice Spring which is located in the center of Australia. A330, B777-300, and mostly are B777-300ER. According to the latest source, 34 jets already stored in ASP or CQM will be retired

soon than the scheduled timetable.

Apart from retiring old birds, Cathay will receive 4 A321NEO, 1 A350-900, and 2 A350-1000 (B-LXO delivered a couple of weeks ago) in 2021. For Long term plan on their fleet, 21 777X are set to be delivered to the carrier from 2025, as their subsidiary Hong Kong Express would receive their first A321NEO in 2022, which would be delivered from 2022 to 2025.

Entering the first quarter of 2021, the world tends to adapt the "New Normal" under COVID, maintain personal hygiene, wear a face mask and social distancing has been a part of our level. Experts predicted aviation industry will start its journey for returning to pre COVID levels as early as 3rd quarter in 2021, it's a flip over in the aviation industry, airlines bankruptcy, retirement of different aircraft, and changing the way we travel, it brings a hard impact to our lives, just hope everything will return to normal in the future!

Source : Cathay Pacific 2020 Annual results