While Hong Kong-based Cathay Pacific is making solid gains over 2023 passenger numbers, it is still languishing well behind 2019 levels and unlikely to make a full post-pandemic recovery until the middle of 2025. The airline group, which includes low-cost carrier HK Express, said it carried more than 21 million passengers in the nine months to September 30, 2024, around 20% fewer than the 26.9 million it carried in the same period of 2019.
Slow but steady growth for Cathay Pacific On Tuesday, Cathay Pacific released its passenger and cargo traffic figures for September. The figures showed that the airline carried 1.82 million passengers in the month, a 17.
8% year-on-year (YoY) increase but still 25% below the passenger count in September 2019. September is generally considered a quieter month for Hong Kong travel, and that certainly shows, given that the 1.82 million passengers carried by Cathay Pacific is well down on the preceding August (2.
1 million) and July (2.0 million) traffic. Revenue passenger kilometers increased 18.
4% YoY compared to a 21.7% increase in available seat kilometers, which pushed the load factor down by 2.3 percentage points compared to September 2023.
In the first nine months of 2024, Cathay Pacific (Cathay) carried 16.55 million passengers, a 28.4% YoY increase.
That gain was driven by a 34.2% increase in available seat kilometers ; however, with revenue passenger kilometers rising by only 27.8%, the load factor fell by 4.
1 percentage points. Cathay .