Cathay Pacific recorded a loss of up to HK$6.1 billion ($783 million) last year due to strict pandemic-related travel restrictions in Hong Kong.

The Hong Kong airline is poised to burn through HK$1 billion to HK$1.5 billion of cash a month starting in February, it reported Monday.

The airline forecast that it would post an annual loss of HK$5.6 billion to HK$6.1 billion for 2021, well below the average HK$10.2 billion as estimated by 12 analysts polled by Refinitiv and its HK$21.65 billion loss in 2020.

Air crew quarantine measures were further tightened following the discovery that two COVID-positive Cathay staff had breached home quarantine, which resulted in the city's first outbreak of the hyper-contagious Omicron variant.

By January, Cathay's cargo flights, one of the few sectors where the airline was making cash, had reduced to 20 percent of its pre-pandemic capacity, while passenger flights dropped to 2 percent, its chief executive Augustus Tang said Monday.

"Until conditions improve, we are doing everything in our power to maximize capacity, and estimate that mitigation measures to increase crew resources will enable us to operate approximately an additional 5 percent more cargo flight capacity than we are currently operating," Tang said.

Cathay has been hammered as the pandemic wipes out most international travel like most international carriers.

Rival Singapore Airlines Ltd. forecasts it will reach 47 percent and 45 percent of pre-COVID passenger capacity in January and February, respectively.

(With input from agencies)