Cathay Pacific 2008 Annual Report Download - page 17

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Please find page 17 of the 2008 Cathay Pacific annual report below. You can navigate through the pages in the report by either clicking on the pages listed below, or by using the keyword search tool below to find specific information within the annual report.

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Comments by region are as follows:
South West Pacific and South Africa
Cathay Pacific
• 2008 saw a significant boost in capacity to Australia
as we switched flights to those routes with more
revenue earning potential in light of soaring fuel
prices.
• Perth moved to a daily service in October while
Brisbane went from seven to 10 flights a week.
Another three flights were added to Sydney each
week to make it a four-times-daily service.
• Business to and from Australia held up well
throughout the year, helped by an increase in
Mainland China passengers connecting on
Dragonair through the Hong Kong hub.
• A product upgrade also helped our Australia
business, with our new cabins featuring on the
Melbourne and Sydney routes, and other
destinations benefiting from the removal of our
regional Airbus A330-300s.
• New Zealand moved back to a double-daily service
from late October, though demand on the route was
below expectations.
• Business to and from South Africa was stable, but
yield dropped sharply in the last two months of the
year due to the currency movements.
Europe
Cathay Pacific
• Loads on London and other European routes were
high in the first half but saw a big falloff in front-end
business following the financial crisis.
• We boosted capacity to London by upgrading the
CX253/4 flight to a Boeing 747-400 aircraft. A similar
upgrade helped us offer more seats to and from
Amsterdam.
• A greater number of flights to and from Europe
featured our new three-class cabins as the rollout
progressed on older aircraft.
• Demand to and from Paris was robust during the
year and we announced an increase in flights from
summer 2009 with four more flights a week to
make a double-daily service.
South East Asia and Middle East
Cathay Pacific
• We added a seventh daily flight to Singapore in
November. Demand on the route was reasonably
strong throughout 2008 though we began to see
the impact of the financial crisis on front-end
demand in the last quarter.
• Our business to Thailand was significantly affected
by the political turmoil in the country for much of
2008.
• Revenues on the Malaysian routes were affected by
aggressive pricing, particularly to and from Kuala
Lumpur.
• Demand to and from the Philippines was strong
throughout the year with some yield improvement.
• Indonesian routes performed reasonably well and
we added an extra flight to Surabaya from
December, making it a six-times-weekly service.
• Our joint venture with Vietnam Airlines to Hanoi
ended in October. We now codeshare on one flight
per day operated by the Vietnamese carrier in
addition to the new daily flight operated by
Dragonair.
• We reinstated our daily passenger service to
Colombo on 30th March and performance has been
satisfactory.
Review of Operations PASSENGER SERVICES
Cathay Pacific Airways Limited Annual Report 2008 15