Hong Kong’s Cathay Pacific and low-cost carrier HK Express currently operate at just over 80 per cent of their pre-Covid capacity, chief customer and commercial officer Lavinia Lau said this week in an update.
In the first five months of the year to 31 May 2024, oneworld member Cathay Pacific and its HK Express subsidiary together surpassed the 10 million mark for passengers carried, with a combined 11.2 million passengers flown during the period.
Cathay Pacific carried a total of 1,678,532 passengers in May 2024, an increase of 18.4 per cent compared with May 2023. The month’s revenue passenger kilometres (RPKs) increased 20.8 per cent year on year.
Passenger load factor decreased by 4.8 percentage points to 80.3 per cent, while available seat kilometres (ASKs) increased by 28 per cent year on year.
In the first five months of 2024, the number of passengers carried increased by 40.7 pper cent to more than 8.8 million, against a 45.7 per cent increase in ASKs and a 37.5 per cent increase in RPKs, as compared with the same period for 2023.
“May was, as expected, a slightly quieter period for our travel business compared with previous months as demand slowed down, particularly on our regional routes.
Without any long-weekend holidays in Hong Kong, we experienced a 4% decrease in passenger numbers compared with April, when multiple holidays drove strong leisure demand. However, compared with the same month last year, passenger numbers were 18% higher,” chief customer and commercial officer Lavinia Lau said.
“On the travel side, we achieved another milestone in our rebuilding journey as we reached 80% of our pre-pandemic passenger flights as a Group in the second quarter as planned. We remain on track to reach 100% within the first quarter of 2025 as we continue to add more flights and destinations for our customers,” Lau noted.
So far in 2024, Cathay Pacific has already added back Chennai, Colombo and, as of this week, Barcelona to its network, while HK Express has added Beijing (Daxing), Bangkok (Don Mueang), Sanya and Clark.
Cathay and HK Express currently fly to more than 80 destinations, with this number expected to grow to more than 90 by next year including the launch of flights to Riyadh from 28 October 2024.
