HONG KONG, 23 July 2024: Cathay Pacific and HK Express carried about 92,000 passengers combined on 30 June, the highest daily number since the pandemic.
Cathay Pacific released its traffic figures for June 2024 last week, showing the group’s airlines carried 1,837,706 passengers, an increase of 18.7% compared with June 2023.
June’s revenue passenger kilometres (RPKs) increased 23.7% year-on-year. Passenger load factor decreased by 4.2 percentage points to 83.5%, while available seat kilometres (ASKs) increased by 30% year-on-year.
During the first six months of 2024, passengers carried increased by 36.4% to 10,659,601, against a 42.7% increase in ASKs and a 34.9% increase in RPKs, as compared with the same period in 2023.
Travel peak
Chief Customer and Commercial Officer Lavinia Lau commented: “Following a slightly quieter month in May, travel sentiment rebounded in June with leisure travel on both long-haul and short-haul routes performing well. Demand for long-haul travel was driven by the peak season for returning student traffic, and load factors for the United States, Canada, United Kingdom and Europe were each close to 90%. The resumption of our summer seasonal Barcelona service was also popular with customers, particularly those originating from Hong Kong, Spain and Australia.
“In terms of short-haul leisure travel, the Dragon Boat Festival and Hong Kong SAR Establishment Day long-holiday weekends drove strong demand from our home market, with Japan remaining a popular destination for our customers.”
Summer outlook
“The outlook for the summer travel peak remains robust across our network. Looking ahead, we will continue to introduce new destinations for our customers to explore,” said Lau. We were delighted to announce earlier this month that we will be launching a four-times-weekly service to Ningbo in August and a three-times-weekly seasonal service to Cairns between December and March next year, both of which we expect to be popular with customers. As a group, we have already announced 10 new destinations so far this year, seven of which have commenced services.”
