A Cathay Pacific Airways Airbus A350 airplane approaches to land at Changi International Airport in Singapore. File photo
International airline Cathay Pacific expects an increase in flight demand from South Africa and Asia, particularly to Hong Kong, in August.
In an interview with the Business Report, Anand Yedery, the regional head of marketing for sales - South Asia, Middle East and Africa (Samea), said with the return of quarantine-free travel (post-Covid-19) the airline was dedicated to serving its customers, the Chinese community in South Africa.
Cathay Pacific said it was now geared to operate three direct flights per week between South Africa and Hong Kong on the new Airbus A350-900s, beginning in August. Customers looking to travel Cathay Pacific before August could choose to fly with with the airline’s interline partners from Johannesburg to Hong Kong and onwards via Dubai to their preferred destinations.
The airline had strong connections into other popular Asian destinations such as Taipei, Phuket, Shanghai, Denpasar, as well as the Greater Bay.
To this end, he said the airline was also looking to operate more than 100 return flights per week to 14 cities in the Chinese mainland by the end of this month. Customers travelling from Johannesburg could connect onwards to mainland China on the airline’s flights.
Business travellers were looking forward to resuming face-to-face meetings, while travellers reconnected and visited their friends and relatives. South African leisure seekers were looking to explore the rich, vibrant culture of Asia, and vice versa, he said.
The aviation industry was hard hit financially amid Covid-19 global lockdowns and shrinking demand for travel owing to restrictions and quarantine requirements.
However, Cathay Pacific had seen a trend of continuous improvement in their operations and financial performance along with progressive relaxations to travel restrictions and quarantine requirements in Hong Kong from the second half of last year.
“Looking ahead to 2023, we are very excited to reinstate our operations and continue to rebuild Hong Kong as an international aviation hub. Early this year, we carried more than 1 million passengers (globally) for the first time since the start of the pandemic in January alone.
“Since quarantine-free travel between Hong Kong and the Chinese Mainland became a reality this year, along with lifting of transit restrictions, we more than doubled our flights into the Chinese mainland,” Yedery said.
Last year, as airlines started rebuilding capacity, many markets faced challenges with human resources, processes and infrastructure.
In response, Cathay Pacific was taking a measured and responsible approach towards reinstating flights.
“We are assured that people will take advantage of the freedom to travel, which was denied to them during the pandemic. As we scale up steadily, this freedom will help give a boost to the economy as South Africa welcomes tourists and business travellers.
“Despite the considerable challenges faced by the global aviation industry over the past three years, we have made good use of that time to review our business and practices to ensure we emerged from the crisis with a more focused, efficient and competitive organisation. We continue to invest in leading products and services that will benefit our end customers from both verticals of our business- passenger and cargo,” Yedery said.
Cathay Pacific said airlines around the world were rebuilding their capacity post-Covid-19. This required a substantial amount of preparation regarding crew and ground employees, aircraft reactivation and recruitment, which took time and robust planning.
The airline said the industry was faced with the challenge of lack of workforce.
While Cathay Pacific had sufficient pilots, cabin crew and operational employees to support their new current flight schedule, short-term bottlenecks lay in the re-certification of pilots who had not been flying regularly for a long period of time, and the reactivation of aircraft.
“We have been bolstering our capabilities to expedite this process. We are also on track with our recruitment plan. Some 2 000 new employees joined the Cathay Pacific Group in 2022, and we target to recruit a further 3 000 in 2023. Recruitment activities will continue in 2024.”
For the Cathay Pacific fleet, they had been bringing back aircraft that they had moved overseas for long-term parking and would continue to reactivate parked aircraft.
The Cathay Pacific Group also had existing orders for 48 new-generation passenger aircraft (Airbus A350, A321neo, Boeing 777-9), which would be delivered between 2023 and 2028.
“In Johannesburg from August, we will be operating the A350-900, which has a cutting-edge design with the latest aerodynamic refinements, innovative design and technology, and fuel-efficiency,” Yedery said.
Cathay Pacifi said it had recently launched Cathay Cargo, a rebrand of its cargo business shipping directly to more than 70 destinations worldwide, served by Cathay’s more than 200 aircraft.
In the PwC’s 2023 Aviation Industry Review and Outlook, the company said that with most countries now welcoming overseas visitors once again without requiring Covid-19 testing or quarantine, passenger demand had continued to accelerate, providing airlines with the unexpected challenge of having to scramble to return sufficient capacity to service in order to meet the demand.
The firm said that as the airline industry looked forward to taking delivery of more than $100 billion (R1.8 trillion) of new aircraft this year, lessors, lenders, investors and rating agencies would need to look beyond the near-term to ensure that sufficient and affordable liquidity was available for deployment.
BUSINESS REPORT