HONG KONG, 25 March 2024: Strong travel demand continued in February, particularly during the Chinese New Year holiday, Cathay Pacific reports in its latest traffic figures.
On 18 February, Cathay Pacific achieved a significant milestone by carrying more than 70,000 passengers and operating 272 passenger flight sectors, the most on a single day since the start of the pandemic.
Cathay Pacific carried 1,801,174 passengers in February 2024, an increase of 61.6% compared with February 2023. The month’s revenue passenger kilometres (RPKs) increased 50.3% year-on-year. Passenger load factor decreased by 3.8 percentage points to 82.4%, while available seat kilometres (ASKs) increased by 57.3% year-on-year. In the first two months of 2024, the number of passengers carried increased by 63.9% against a 60.6% increase in ASKs and a 53.4% increase in RPKs compared with the same period in 2023.
Travel trends
Chief Customer and Commercial Officer Lavinia Lau said: “Our passenger business performed well in February as customers travelled for Chinese New Year. Demand from Hong Kong, the rest of the Greater Bay Area and the Chinese Mainland surged over the holiday period, especially on short-haul routes. We also saw good traffic between the Chinese Mainland and Hong Kong. As a result, our Chinese Mainland routes achieved 85% load factors over Chinese New Year. Our Japan routes also saw a strong resurgence in bookings, especially from Hong Kong, after the subdued demand in January following the devastating earthquakes that impacted Japan.
“Following the introduction of visa-free travel between the Chinese Mainland and Southeast Asian countries such as Thailand, Malaysia, Singapore, and Indonesia, travel sentiment has remained consistently positive on these routes. We also resumed our Chennai and Colombo services in February. For Chennai, traffic has been good to and from Hong Kong and onward destinations in the US. Colombo has seen good demand from customers from mainland China, Japan, and Australia.”
Outlook
“Looking ahead, we anticipate demand will progressively grow leading up to the Easter holidays, especially on long-haul routes. We are seeing strong demand for business travel into Hong Kong with various exhibitions in the city. The extension of the Individual Visit Scheme to include travellers from Xi’an and Qingdao will also boost sentiment for travel to Hong Kong, especially during the Labour Day holiday in May.
“Throughout our rebuild journey, we have put in great effort not only to resume destinations and increase frequencies but also to expand our network and bring more business opportunities and leisure travel destinations for the public of Hong Kong. In addition, we have been a staunch supporter of the Central Government’s Belt and Road Initiative, serving 21 destinations in 14 participating countries already. We are excited to announce that Cathay Pacific will launch passenger flights to Riyadh, the capital and financial hub of Saudi Arabia, in the fourth quarter of this year, and we will share more details in due course.”
