Cargo and passenger flights further slashed

Cathy Pacific (0293) will operate at 20 percent of cargo capacity and 2 percent of passenger capacity compared to pre-Covid level, after it sacked two of its aircrew for breaching medical surveillance regulations on Sunday.

Last November, Cathay operated about 71 percent and 12 percent of its pre-Covid cargo and passenger flight capacity compared to the same month in 2019, meaning the flag carrier is slashing over 70 percent of cargo and 80 percent of passenger current capacity this month compared to November 2021.

Some long-haul cargo routes will resume today after full suspension on all the long-way cargo flights on December 31. The company will maintain cargo operations to mainland China or other cities in Asia during January. There will be only one flight a day to North America. Freight to Europe and Southwest Pacific will be put on passenger planes.

This came as the airline will further reduce passenger flights to and from Hong Kong from now until the end of March 2022 tentatively, Cathay announced on its website yesterday after it canceled some long-haul flights.

Meanwhile, banks in Hong Kong, including Goldman Sachs and HSBC Holdings (0005), are once again tightening work rules at their offices and moving into split teams as the detection of the omicron variant threatens the fifth wave of infections.

In a memo to staff yesterday, Goldman announced it was moving to split teams with one half working from home over the next two weeks as of Monday. The policy will be in effect until January 21, according to a memo that was confirmed by a spokesman.

UBS Group asked all business functions in Hong Kong to revert to two split teams to alternate office work week by week while Bank of America Corp. "encouraged" employees to work at home until January 24. HSBC Holdings is also limiting its office capacity to 50 percent from Friday.

It is reported that Hong Kong Monetary Authority, the city's de facto central bank, already on Friday sent a missive to banks to tell them to allow employees to work from home and split staff into different teams.