Cathay Pacific Cargo said it is returning more capacity as conditions in the market improve — although crew restrictions in Hong Kong continue to constrain its operations.
Tom Owen, Cathay Pacific's director of cargo said from the base level of 20% against 2019 in January, cargo capacity at Cathay is now "up to around a third" of the airline's pre-pandemic capacity.
"In terms of our current cargo capacity, we're still constrained on long-haul trade lanes, but we have been working hard to free up as much capacity as possible," Owen said, noting that Cathay Pacific will be adding two freighters into Europe in April after an absence from the trade lane of more than three months.
Cathay Pacific will add a twice-per-week B-747 freighter service between Hong Kong and Frankfurt starting April 13. It will operate on Wednesdays and Saturdays and from there, the carrier will offer onward road feeder services to other points in Europe.
The Hong Kong-based airline was earlier forced to cut its long-haul freighter services after the government introduced tighter Covid-19 restrictions which had pilots required to undergo weeklong quarantine upon return to the city.
Capacity was further squeezed at the start of 2022 when the Hong Kong government moved to tighten the quarantine requirements for Hong Kong-based aircrew – notably those operating cargo flights.
Hong Kong also temporarily banned all flights from nine countries, including the UK and the US, which Cathay said are "major markets" for them.
Crew quarantine impact
"While we welcome the recent relaxation to some quarantine requirements in Hong Kong, our cargo operations are still restricted because of ongoing crew quarantine requirements at the time of writing," Owen said in a statement.
"We are hopeful further changes that will allow us to restore our long-haul freighter routes will not be too far away."
The Cathay executive noted that while long-haul remains tight, the airline has been expanding its operations in the region.
It has also focused on moving vital Covid-19 related shipments.
"We are flying as much as we can regionally and have increased flights into both North East and Southeast Asia," Owen said, adding that Cathay has been playing an important role in carrying vital shipments of rapid antigen tests and other critical supplies to help authorities both here in Hong Kong and overseas.
"We are currently running a series of nine freighter charters to Auckland and have operated a cargo-only passenger freighter to Darwin, which is not on our current network, to deliver the equipment required to transition to open borders," he added.
Russia-Ukraine war drag
Elsewhere, Cathay Pacific also signaled that the ongoing conflict between Russia and Ukraine is also impacting its operations.
Owen said the airline has taken the decision to avoid Russian airspace.
"We have been monitoring the situation very closely, and we have taken the decision as a company not to fly through Russian air space," Owen said. "Our flight schedule remains intact but we will see some lengthened flight times for services to Europe and the Americas."
"We are also monitoring daily fuel prices, which are now more volatile as a result of the crisis," he added.
Owen said closer to Hong Kong, the elevated restrictions on the border with the Chinese Mainland are affecting volumes of cargo between Hong Kong and the Greater Bay Area.
This has been compounded by the lockdown measures taken in Shenzhen and Dongguan to support the Chinese Mainland's dynamic zero-COVID policies.
"This is having an impact on production, cross-border trucking, and transport in the short term," Owen added.
