Cathay Pacific Group expects 'incredibly challenging' rest of 2019

Cathay Pacific Group chief customer and commercial officer Ronald Lam stated (18-Oct-2019) the carrier expects the rest of 2019 will remain "incredibly challenging" and 2H2019 financial results will be below 1H2019 results. He said: "We continue to see a significant shortfall in inbound bookings for the remainder of 2019 as compared to the same snapshot last year. This has been felt most strongly with bookings from mainland China and our other Asian markets". He noted Sep-2019 was "another challenging" month for its passenger business, with revenue adversely affected by weakened market sentiment, particularly for travel into Hong Kong. Inbound traffic declined 38% year-on-year, while outbound traffic declined 9% and transit traffic via Hong Kong remained relatively stable. As previously reported, Cathay Pacific is taking a number of short term measures to respond to the declining traffic, including realigning capacity for the 2019/2020 winter season. [more - original PR]