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Cathay Pacific looks to increase passenger flights in late June if coronavirus travel restrictions are eased
- Carrier targets return of daily services to major Asian cities and more frequent long-haul services
- Airline to monitor global situation and adjustments may be made ‘as necessary’
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Cathay Pacific Airways has signalled its intent to start reversing its near-total grounding of aircraft because of the coronavirus pandemic, and plans to start increasing its number of passenger flights in the last week of June.
The airline said it hoped to add more long-haul destinations, make flights more frequent, and reinstate some major Asian cities to its daily schedule for the first time in several months, “subject to government travel restrictions”.
Cathay scaled its operations back to a skeleton schedule of 3 per cent of services in early April, and that was extended until June 20. The newly announced increases would take that up to 5 per cent.
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The global airline industry has been rocked by the pandemic, which triggered a collapse in air travel demand amid severe travel restrictions and tough quarantine measures.
Singapore Airlines, another of Asia’s major carriers, said last week it would maintain a 96 per cent reduction in flights until the end of June.
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