Cathay Pacific Airways Ltd plans to start a new round of negotiations to buy long-haul jets from next year as the airline looks to position itself for growth in the next decade.
“The end of the decade is not far away. We have got to place our orders now,” Alex McGowan, Chief Operations and Service Delivery Officer, said on Tuesday.
The comments came shortly after the company committed to spending HK$100 billion, mostly on new aircraft through 2030.
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McGowan said the likely review of new aircraft purchases would examine widebody jets as small as the Boeing Co 787 and as large as a 777-9.
The airline’s next long-haul aircraft order will be “the final component” in a series of deals in recent years, the Cathay executive added, speaking on the sidelines of a CAPA aviation conference in Hong Kong, where the carrier is based.
The Hong Kong flag carrier is edging towards a full recovery following the impact of the COVID-19 outbreak on global travel and is now operating at around 90 percent of its pre-pandemic flight levels, McGowan said earlier on-stage at the event.
Cathay’s interest in ordering more aircraft opens the door for Boeing after the US planemaker lost out to arch-rival Airbus SE on consecutive single-aisle and widebody passenger and freighter deals. Earlier Tuesday, Boeing workers voted to accept a new labor contract, ending a strike that had crippled jetliner production for 53 days.
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On Aug 7, Cathay confirmed an earlier Bloomberg report that it has placed an order with the European planemaker Airbus, overlooking an offer from US rival Boeing Co for 787 Dreamliner jets. Bloomberg reported that the airline will buy as many as 60 Airbus SE A330neo twin-aisle jets in an HK$85.5 billion ($11 billion) deal to underpin its ambitious expansion from its base in Hong Kong.
The multibillion-dollar transaction for 30 A330-900neos with the right to purchase 30 more would be before significant discounts on large sales are factored in. Based on estimates provided by Ishka, an aviation consultancy that tracks aircraft sales, the order would probably be worth closer to $6.7 billion.
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Cathay’s latest deal with Airbus is its third in 12 months and caps its biggest plane spending spree in more than a decade. It also takes its order backlog to over 100 jets. Cathay already has 48 A350 planes in its fleet and operates 43 older generation A330s.
