Cathay Pacific is close to finalizing an agreement for 18 leased Airbus A321neo aircraft, Bloomberg reports. The 18 Airbus A321neo would be delivered on a lease between 2025 and 2027, as per the report.
Airbus’s June Orders & Deliveries states that the airline operates 11 aircraft of the type, with an additional aircraft being placed with its low-cost subsidiary, HK Express. Out of 12 aircraft, five are owned by the airline, whileseven are leased from Bocomm, a subsidiary of Bank of Communications, based in Hong Kong.
Going ahead, Cathay Pacific is about to publish its H1, 2023 report tomorrow and expects a positive outcome. Forecasting the result, Lavina Lau, chief commercial and customer officer had commented: “HK Express and Air Hong Kong had seen significant improvements compared to H1 2022, in light of the removal of quarantine requirements in late September 2022 and the progressive increase in the Group’s capacity since that time.”
Still, as it diluted its stake in Air China from 18.13% to 16.26%, it will record a one-off non-cash gain of HKD1.9 billion ($243.3 million). The non-cash gain was announced in January 2023 as part of the airline’s full-year financial report for 2022.
“Taking all of the above into account, together with the offsetting impact of the results from associates, which are reported three months in arrears, we expect that the Group will deliver a consolidated profit for the first half of 2023,” Lau concluded.
During the first six months of 2023, Cathay Pacific carried 7.8 million passengers, a 2,230% improvement compared to the same period in 2022, as it operated 18,101 flights.
Commenting on the H1 2023 passenger results, Lau said: “We are pleased to see that our travel business continued to perform well in June. We reached a new milestone on 25 June when we surpassed the 60,000 mark for passengers carried in a single day for the first time since the pandemic.”