Message to our partners
We hope you and your team are staying safe. We are reaching out to you today to provide an update on Cathay Pacific’s business performance and achievements in 2021.
2021 business performance
On 9 March 2022, we announced the Cathay Pacific Group’s 2021 Annual Results, which show a significant improvement from the Group’s loss the previous year.
The Cathay Pacific Group’s attributable loss for the year was HK$5,527 million, down from HK$21,648 million in 2020. While we reported losses at both Group level and at Airline level, the Cathay Pacific Group made an attributable profit in the second half of 2021 of HK$2,038 million.
The exceptionally strong cargo performance, together with our continued focus on effective cash and cost management, including the benefits realised from the restructuring at the end of 2020 and our ongoing work with suppliers and business partners, had a positive impact on our monthly operating cash burn, to the extent that we were marginally cash generative in the second half of 2021. Our results are a clear indication of what we can achieve once operational constraints can be lifted, and the recovery begins.
At the end of 2020, our available unrestricted liquidity stood at HK$28.6 billion. At the end of 2021, it stood at HK$30.3 billion. Our strong second-half performance combined with the two bond issues last year allowed us to maintain a stable level of liquidity over such a turbulent period. We welcomed the Hong Kong SAR Government’s agreement to extend the drawdown period of the HK$7.8 billion loan facility made available as part of our 2020 recapitalisation by 12 months to June 2022. This provides us with more flexibility to manage our liquidity position.
This healthy liquidity position gives us great confidence that we can overcome the ongoing challenges and emerge from this crisis as a more focused, efficient and more competitive airline than we were before it.
Achievements in 2021 and prospects
We continue to transform as a business, and last year we launched “Cathay”, our new premium lifestyle brand. Cathay aims to bring all that we love about travel together with everyday lifestyle. This will simplify the way our customers interact with us, including how they earn status and use miles, and will enable us to engage with them not only when they fly with us, but every day.
We also celebrated the inaugural flight of the newest addition to our fleet, the Airbus A321neo, in August. These state-of-the-art passenger aircraft provide the best short-haul experience in the world. Cathay Pacific has already taken delivery of five A321neos and will have 16 in its fleet by the end of 2023.
We continued our commitment to achieving greener aviation by pledging to use sustainable aviation fuel for 10% of Cathay Pacific’s total fuel consumption by 2030, and by becoming a founding member of the Aviation Climate Taskforce, a new non-profit organisation founded to tackle the challenge of eliminating carbon emissions in aviation through innovation and collaboration. These initiatives will help the Group achieve its goal of net-zero carbon emissions by 2050.
As Hong Kong undergoes a particularly challenging phase of this pandemic, we are doing everything we can to maintain all vital connections and the flow of people and goods between Hong Kong and the rest of the world moving, such as shipping over 190 million doses of COVID-19 vaccines and delivering over 13 million Rapid Antigen Tests to Hong Kong. At the same time, we are constantly looking at ways to continue to keep our customers safe, well-informed, and in charge of their booking, so that their journey will remain as special to them as it is to us.
As much as we are grateful for our people who have worked tirelessly during the pandemic, making a difference for our customers and our communities, we would also like to express our sincere gratitude for the continued support that our partners and customers have given us. Rest assured that you can remain confident that Cathay Pacific is doing everything possible to reinforce our financial position to weather the storm, and ensure that we are well-positioned to meet market demand head-on when the worldwide recovery from this crisis takes place.
Please feel free to reach out to us directly should you have any further questions.
We hope that you, your family and your colleagues remain safe and healthy throughout 2022.