Airline industry "in a trough" - Tyler
Cathay Pacific will not recover from effects of the economic downturn for some time, ceo Tony Tyler said yesterday (Sep 9).
Mr Tyler, speaking from the Asian Aerospace congress in Hong Kong, said this latest industry downturn was different to previous airline crises.
"One of the things that's been different is this has been global," Mr Tyler told the Financial Times.
"Over the last 20 or 30 years there have been a number of cycles but there has been more emphasis in other regions."
Mr Tyler cited the Asian financial crisis of the late 90s and the outbreak of SARS as having affected Cathay's business in the past.
He said the 9/11 atrocities in 2001 had not hit Cathay's business as much as other airlines in other regions.
But Mr Tyler said this downturn had resulted in every market being "down massive percentages".
"Structurally our front end business seems to have been very hard hit, our cargo business, very hard hit, and it seems it will take us a long time to get out of this trough that we've fallen into," he said.
Commenting on last month's traffic figures, Mr Tyler said "there was no doubt" that cargo demand out of Hong Kong had picked up with many planes leaving full.
"Nobody looks harder for green shoots that we do," said Mr Tyler.
"We've even seen a little yield improvement, but this is a time when we would normally see the cargo peak.
"This is perhaps just the usual seasonal variation but it's good to see some firmness at this time of the year."
In a speech to the airline congress the day before Mr Tyler said that while cargo and passenger numbers had risen in July, both were well below last year's levels.
"At Cathay Pacific we carried very high numbers of passengers in July and August and our airport staff and cabin crew must wonder why we keep banging on about the situation being so grim.
"But the truth is that the premium cabins were only full because of people being able to enjoy upgrades and Asia Miles redemptions, while the back end was filled to the brim with people travelling on very cheap fares."
In July Cathay and Dragonair reported a combined drop in passenger traffic of 9.9% year-on-year.
The number of flights in July also dropped 11.6% year-on-year while capacity was cut 7.5%.
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