Air China’s net profit drops 39.8% to 1.5 billion yuan in the first quarter, which was in part blamed on its investment losses of 141.6 million yuan - the majority was from Cathay Pacific, of which it owns 29.99 per cent.
Cathay itself expectedly swung into loss of HK$575 million (US$73.8 million) in 2016 and has projected just as turbulent times ahead this year.
Cathay Pacific and Cathay Dragon carried a combined 2,851,661 passengers in March, 3.7 per cent fewer than March last year.
If you take the Cathay stake out of Air China’s figures, its gross revenue rose 9.8 per cent to 29 billion yuan in the first quarter, on the back of 7.8 per cent passenger traffic year-on-year growth.