Cathay Pacific and Cathay Dragon have announced that while both will reduce capacity drastically across their passenger network in April and May due to the coronavirus pandemic, the airlines’ freighter capacity remains intact.

Cathay Pacific chief customer and commercial officer, Ronald Lam, said:

“As Hong Kong’s home airlines, it is important that we continue to provide important passenger and cargo connections to and from the Hong Kong hub. We will therefore endeavour to maintain a minimal number of flights to and from key destinations in our network to ensure these vital arteries remain open.”

“While our freighter network remains intact, we are also ramping up our cargo capacity by mounting charter services and operating certain suspended passenger services purely for air freight to meet cargo customer demand.”

Reduced passenger operations

Due to a drop in demand caused by the coronavirus pandemic and resulting travel restrictions, Cathay Pacific and Cathay Dragon say they will be reducing capacity by 96 per cent across their passenger networks in April and May.

However, maintaining this skeleton schedule will depend on whether more travel restrictions are imposed by governments around the world that will further reduce passenger demand.

Lam says the airlines needed to take difficult measures due to the unprecedented scale of the challenge facing the global aviation industry.

Cathay Pacific will operate three flights per week to 12 destinations: London (Heathrow), Los Angeles, Vancouver, Tokyo (Narita), Taipei, New Delhi, Bangkok, Jakarta, Manila, Ho Chi Minh City, Singapore and Sydney.

Cathay Dragon will operate three flights per week to Beijing, Shanghai (Pudong) and Kuala Lumpur.

“Cathay Pacific is a resilient company. While we shall have much more to deal with given the challenges ahead, we remain confident in the long-term future of the company, the Hong Kong hub and our ability to thrive in Asia Pacific,” Lam remarked.

Cathay Pacific and Cathay Dragon are waiving rebooking, rerouting and cancellation fees.