Hong Kong carrier Cathay Pacific posts $972m first-half loss

Struggling Hong Kong carrier Cathay Pacific on Wednesday reported a $972 million net loss in the first six months of 2021 as the pandemic continues to hammer demand for travel.

And while the figure is an improvement on the $1.3 billion loss suffered in the same period last year, the airline said the outlook remained uncertain owing to ongoing struggles to battle the disease.

Chairman Patrick Healy said 2021 continues to be the “toughest period” in the airline’s 70-year history, but the progress of global vaccination drives provided some encouragement for the industry.

“Covid-19 will continue to have a severe impact on our business until borders progressively open and travel constraints are lifted,” he warned.

With no domestic market to fall back on, Cathay Pacific has been among the worst hit of the major global airlines.

In the midst of the pandemic last year Hong Kong’s government came to the rescue with a major bailout.

Hong Kong has kept coronavirus cases low by effectively sealing itself off to most of the world for the past 18 months, a move that has kept people safe but crippled the travel industry.

Earlier this month authorities lifted some of those restrictions meaning visitors without work visas or residency would now be able to travel to the city. But they will still have to undergo between 7-21 days of hotel quarantine depending on where they have come from. 

Cathay Pacific carried just 157,000 passengers in the first half of the year, 96 percent fewer than in the same period in 2020. The company made just $96 million from passenger flights during that period.

Instead it is air cargo keeping the airline on life support, generating four fifths of revenue. 

Healy said the firm hoped to be operating at around 30 percent of its pre-pandemic passenger capacity by the fourth quarter of this year.

But much will depend on “operational and passenger travel restrictions being lifted”.

“As governments have stated, this is only going to be possible when sufficiently high vaccination levels are achieved. The progress of vaccination is encouraging, but the pace and timing of recovery remain uncertain,” Healy added.

Cathay suffered a record $2.8 billion loss last year. It has slashed its workforce through redundancies, early retirements and shutting down overseas pilot crew bases in five countries.

Bloomberg Intelligence analyst James Teo said Cathay’s outlook for the second half of the year looked more positive.

“It’s not just the reopening, but also since their Europe flights are seeing 40 percent load factor in June and China flights are also not bad at 29 percent. This could improve with the reopening,” he said, referring to Hong Kong gradually relaxing its entry rules.

Shares in Cathay rose 1.61 percent in afternoon trade, following the release of the earnings report. 

Facebook Will No Longer Ban Posts Claiming COVID-19 Was Man-Made

Facebook said it would no longer take down posts claiming that COVID-19 was man-made. This comes as US President Biden ordered further investigation into the origins of the virus, which are disputed in both the scientific and intelligence communities.

“In light of ongoing investigations into the origin of COVID-19 and in consultation with public health experts, we will no longer remove the claim that COVID-19 is man-made from our apps,” a Facebook spokesperson said, according to a Reuters report.

She said the company would continue consulting with health experts and update its policies as new facts and trends emerge. Facebook, like other social media platforms, have committed to removing falsehoods and misinformation about the virus.

The claim that the virus came from a laboratory in the Chinese city of Wuhan has long been dismissed as a baseless conspiracy theory. Former US President Donald Trump famously floated the theory, which at the time was widely rejected by the scientific community.

But according to the BBC and other news outlets, a recently disclosed US intelligence report said that three researchers from the Wuhan laboratory were treated in hospital in November 2019 – just before the virus broke out in the city.

As news of the report spread, the Biden administration admitted that the US intelligence community was split on whether the virus came from a laboratory accident or emerged naturally (from human contact with an infected animal). The US president wants officials to look into the question again and get him answers within 90 days, the BBC said.

China, unsurprisingly, has rejected the lab leak theory.

Facebook Now Allows You To Transfer Your Posts To Other Platforms

Facebook today revealed that it has rolled out a new feature which would allow its users to preserve their published posts to platforms outside of its ecosystem such as Google Docs, WordPress or Blogger. This greatly expands the existing data transfer tool for photos and videos that was introduced by the social media company last year.

The new feature is part of a cross-company data-sharing initiative that launched in 2018, simply known as the Data Transfer Project. Its aim is to have users freely move their data across various online services and platforms seamlessly without restriction. Among those participating in this initiative includes Apple, Google, Microsoft and Twitter – all of which also have introduced their own data-export tools.

Concurrently, as noted by The Verge, the introduction of this new feature would also help bring Facebook in line with two recent regulation laws, the California’s Consumer Privacy Act and the European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation. “We hope this tool empowers people to take control of their data and encourages the creation of updated rules around data portability by lawmakers,” said company Chief Privacy Officer Michel Protti. “We look forward to working with more experts and companies to expand the scope of what you can move between platforms.”

This new addition to Facebook’s information transfer tool is now available to all users across the globe. Those who wish to utilise the feature may find it in the “Your Facebook Information” page, under the platform’s Settings page. From there, you can choose which type of content you wish to transfer, and to which platform outside of Facebook that you want it delivered to.

Keep in mind that the choices of transfer destinations will differ depending on what type of content you wish to move. Also, it’s worth noting that any data ported to other platforms will not include elements such as comments or data from other users, as they belong to their respective owners.

Zoom Posts Amazing Earnings, Questions Remain About Future Growth

Zoom, the video conferencing company that catapulted to popularity during the COVID-19 pandemic, has reported a revenue of US$882.5 million (~RM3.6 billion) in the last three months of 2020 – a 370% jump compared to the same period the year before, the BBC said.

To understand the magnitude of this change, consider that Zoom’s profit in 2019 only amounted to US$21.7 million (~RM88.1 million). The following year, it rapidly ballooned to US$671.5 million (~RM2.7 billion). According to the BBC, the company’s total revenue in 2020 was US$2.6 billion (~RM10.6 billion) or an astounding increase of 326%.

But with even those numbers, Zoom can hardly rest on its laurels. People around the world are being vaccinated and lockdowns are being slowly lifted. Analysts question whether the platform can maintain its meteoric growth if work from home happens to be only a momentary trend.

And there are some ominous signs for the company. According to CNBC, Zoom finance chief Kelly Steckelberg conceded that the company was losing customers at a higher rate than before the pandemic – though it also lost fewer customers than expected.

Analysts say the company is also facing stiffer competition from Microsoft, Google, and Cisco now. Time will tell if Zoom has what it takes to tango with the big boys.

Airbnb Posts Huge Loss, Yet Exceeds Expectations In First Earnings

Airbnb, the short-term property rental platform, showed an eye-popping loss of US$3.89 billion (~RM15.75 billion) in its first earnings report since its IPO (Initial public offering) last December, CNBC reported. But the company also performed ahead of market expectations and its competitors.

Aside from its recent IPO, Airbnb is also closely watched as a potential barometer for a travel industry badly ravaged by COVID-19. During the last quarter (Q4 2020), the company took in revenue totalling US$859 million (~RM3.48 billion) – notably more than the US$747.4 million (~RM3.03 billion) that were expected by analysts, Reuters reported.

More importantly, Airbnb didn’t do as badly as its competitors, seeing a year-on-year revenue drop of just 22%. In contrast, rival Expedia saw a whopping drop of 67% while Booking Holdings similarly posted a 63% fall.

Indeed, Airbnb’s letter to shareholders emphasised the company’s “resilience” despite the pandemic and lockdowns across the globe. The firm also attributed a large chunk (US$2.8 billion / ~11.34 billion) of its reported loss to stock-based compensation costs.

But despite all its (relatively) rosy talk, the company is still tightening its belt and won’t be spending as much on marketing. “What the pandemic showed is that we can take marketing down to zero and still have 95% of the same traffic as the year before,” Airbnb CEO Brian Chesky told CNBC’s Jim Cramer.