Hong Kong carrier Cathay Pacific Airways has a team assessing its business model in light of the recent industry downturn.
The recent downturn has seen demand for business class air travel and cargo, mainstay's of the Oneworld carrier's business model, fall sharply.
"We are looking at whether the changes in the industry are cyclical or structural," says Cathay. "If it turns out the changes in the industry are structural, we need to ensure our business model is sustainable."
Yesterday Cathay posted a HK$812 million ($105 million) net profit for the fiscal first half due to paper profits from its fuel hedging, even though revenue fell 27% year-on-year to HK$30.9 billion from HK$42.4 billion.
"It's not true to say we're scrapping business class," says the airline, responding to reports quoting from aviation analysts. "We're just looking at the model" and have established a team to assess this, it adds.
The airline notes that it is a legacy carrier and as such relies on premium seats, a full load in economy class and full-belly of cargo.
In its results yesterday Cathay's operating statistics show passengers carried fell 4.2% in the first half year-on-year to 11.9 million from 12.5 million.
The passenger load factor was down 1.5 percentage points to 78.5% from 80% and cargo carried fell 15% to 701,000t from 828,000t.
Source: Air Transport Intelligence news
