Hong Kong flag carrier Cathay Pacific Airways Ltd (國泰航空) yesterday said that its losses had narrowed in the first six months of this year, but added that global economic uncertainty would pose a challenge as the firm battles to revive its fortunes.
The carrier posted a net loss of HK$263 million (US$33.5 million), compared with a HK$2 billion loss for the same period last year.
However, it still fell short of some analysts’ estimates after being hit hard by rising fuel costs.
Cathay Pacific shares yesterday were down 1.82 percent at HK$11.86 in trading in Hong Kong.
The airline has come under pressure from lower-cost Chinese carriers and Middle Eastern rivals, which are expanding into Asia and offering more luxury touches.
In March, it booked the first back-to-back annual loss in its seven-decade history.
The firm had previously pledged to cut 600 staff, including one-quarter of its management, as part of its biggest overhaul in two decades.
Cathay Pacific chief executive officer Rupert Hogg took over in May last year, replacing Ivan Chu (朱國樑), who had been in the job for three years.
There was no specific reference to the possibility of further job cuts or restructuring yesterday, but Cathay Pacific chairman John Slosar said in a statement that the company’s “transformation program” would continue.
Hong Kong’s South China Morning Post last month reported that there would be a “consolidation” of the carrier’s overseas operations, prompting fears over further job losses.
The company yesterday confirmed that it was restructuring the organization of its “outports.”
“An internal memo has been shared with the employees of the Cathay Pacific Group as our regional and country teams start to communicate and, where necessary, consult with their local teams on the restructuring,” it said in an e-mail to reporters, without giving further details.
Yesterday’s results missed a median estimate for a profit of HK$140 million in a Bloomberg News survey of five analysts.
Cathay Pacific said although its performance had been boosted by strong cargo business and a weak US dollar, it had been dragged by increased fuel prices.
Fuel is the group’s most significant outlay, accounting for 30.1 percent of total operating costs.
Fuel costs, including hedging losses, in the first half of the year stood at HK$16 billion, compared with HK$14.9 billion in the same period last year.
Slosar predicted the airline’s performance would improve in the second half.
“The strength of the US dollar and economic uncertainty arising from global trade concerns remain challenges,” he said in a statement. “But we still expect passenger yields to continue to improve and the cargo business to remain strong.”
Among the rows of vibrators, rubber torsos and leather harnesses at a Chinese sex toys exhibition in Shanghai this weekend, the beginnings of an artificial intelligence (AI)-driven shift in the industry quietly pulsed. China manufactures about 70 percent of the world’s sex toys, most of it the “hardware” on display at the fair — whether that be technicolor tentacled dildos or hyper-realistic personalized silicone dolls. Yet smart toys have been rising in popularity for some time. Many major European and US brands already offer tech-enhanced products that can enable long-distance love, monitor well-being and even bring people one step closer to
Malaysia’s leader yesterday announced plans to build a massive semiconductor design park, aiming to boost the Southeast Asian nation’s role in the global chip industry. A prominent player in the semiconductor industry for decades, Malaysia accounts for an estimated 13 percent of global back-end manufacturing, according to German tech giant Bosch. Now it wants to go beyond production and emerge as a chip design powerhouse too, Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim said. “I am pleased to announce the largest IC (integrated circuit) Design Park in Southeast Asia, that will house world-class anchor tenants and collaborate with global companies such as Arm [Holdings PLC],”
TRANSFORMATION: Taiwan is now home to the largest Google hardware research and development center outside of the US, thanks to the nation’s economic policies President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) yesterday attended an event marking the opening of Google’s second hardware research and development (R&D) office in Taiwan, which was held at New Taipei City’s Banciao District (板橋). This signals Taiwan’s transformation into the world’s largest Google hardware research and development center outside of the US, validating the nation’s economic policy in the past eight years, she said. The “five plus two” innovative industries policy, “six core strategic industries” initiative and infrastructure projects have grown the national industry and established resilient supply chains that withstood the COVID-19 pandemic, Tsai said. Taiwan has improved investment conditions of the domestic economy
Sales in the retail, and food and beverage sectors last month continued to rise, increasing 0.7 percent and 13.6 percent respectively from a year earlier, setting record highs for the month of March, the Ministry of Economic Affairs said yesterday. Sales in the wholesale sector also grew last month by 4.6 annually, mainly due to the business opportunities for emerging applications related to artificial intelligence (AI) and high-performance computing technologies, the ministry said in a report. The ministry forecast that retail, and food and beverage sales this month would retain their growth momentum as the former would benefit from Tomb Sweeping Day