Hong Kong’s Cathay Pacific will add flights to mainland China, as airline carries more than 11 million passengers to hit 46% of pre-pandemic levels

Lavinia Lau Hoi-zee, chief customer and commercial officer for the group, on Wednesday said the forecast was positive for the rest of the year, and student travellers would bump up passenger numbers this month.

“Continued demand for student travel to the UK in particular will provide a good boost in September, while overall the outlook for the rest of 2023 looks promising,” she said.

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Lau added the city’s flag carrier would continue to add more flights, especially to and from the mainland, for which it was currently operating about 170 return services per week to 15 cities.

In the first eight months of the year, Cathay Pacific carried 11.34 million passengers, a 1,302 per cent increase over the same period in 2022 when many pandemic restrictions were still in place.

But the figure was 46 per cent of the 24.4 million passengers carried by Cathay Pacific and now-defunct Cathay Dragon in the first eight months of 2019, before the pandemic struck.

The airline said it carried 1.78 million passengers last month, a 603 per cent increase over August in 2022.

The passenger load factor – a measure of how well an airline was filling available seats – was at 88 per cent.

Lau said travel demand remained strong, in particular to short-haul destinations, while trips from Japan to Hong Kong and onto destinations in Asia and Europe had also increased.

Student travel to Canada, the US and the UK from Hong Kong and the mainland had also notably increased in the latter part of last month, she said.

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Flights to Colombo, in Sri Lanka, and Chennai, in India, would resume from February 2024.

On the cargo side, the airline carried 116,919 tonnes last month, an 11.5 per cent increase over the same month last year.

“September marks the start of the traditional peak period and we are seeing demand beginning to pick up well as businesses plan ahead for consumer sales events such as ‘Singles’ Day’ in the mainland and ‘Black Friday’ in long-haul markets, as well as new consumer product launches that are on the horizon,” said Lau, referring to the two major shopping events.

Lau last month said that Cathay and its budget arm HK Express were “now close” to 60 per cent of pre-pandemic passenger flight capacity levels.

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The Cathay group aims to raise that figure to 70 per cent by the end of the year and fully restore levels by the end of 2024.

Regional rival Singapore Airlines Group, meanwhile, said it was on track to reach about 90 per cent of pre-pandemic capacity by March next year.

Last month marked a return to profit for Cathay, spurred by strong demand following the reopening of the city’s borders and elevated ticket prices.

The company reported a net profit of HK$4.26 billion (US$546 million) for the first half of 2023, following losses of HK$33.7 billion over three years during the pandemic.

Cathay grounded much of its fleet and laid off thousands of employees as part of cost-cutting measures during the pandemic. The company still faces a shortage of workers.