Cathay Pacific buys 27 more planes, announces record profits

Mar 9, 2011, 8:21 GMT

Hong Kong - Hong Kong's leading airline Cathay Pacific Wednesday said it was to buy 27 more aircraft as it announced a record net profit of 1.8 billion US dollars.

The airline announced it had agreed to buy 15 Airbus A330-300s, two Airbus A350-900s and 10 Boeing 777-300ERs, all to be delivered by the end of 2015.

The orders, with a total list price of 6.5 billion US dollars, follow Cathay Pacific's biggest-ever order, placed in September, for 30 Airbus A350-900s and six Boeing 777-300ERs.

Cathay Pacific now has 91 new aircraft on order for delivery by 2019, the airline said in a statement.

The announcement came as the airline announced a better-than-anticipated net profit of 14.05 billion Hong Kong dollars (1.8 billion US dollars) for 2010.

The record result was almost triple the 4.69 billion Hong Kong dollars of net profit in 2009. Turnover rose 33.7 per cent in 2010 to 89.5 billion Hong Kong dollars.

Cathay Pacific and its sister airline Dragonair carried a total of 26.8 million passengers in 2010, a 9.1-per-cent rise on 2009. Passenger revenue for the year increased 29.3 per cent to 59.3 billion Hong Kong dollars.

Freight carried by Cathay Pacific and Dragonair increased by 18.1 per cent year-on-year to 1.8 million tons. Cargo revenue increased by 50.1 per cent to 25.9 billion Hong Kong dollars.

'Demand is at present expected to remain strong in 2011, but this expectation could be undermined if the current, or any higher, levels of oil prices were to reduce global economic activity,' company chairman Christopher Pratt said.

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