Cathay Pacific releases traffic figures for January 2024

Cathay Pacific today released its traffic figures for January 2024. The Cathay Group, comprising Cathay Pacific and HK Express, carried over two million passengers during the month, averaging more than 70,000 passengers per day.

Cathay Pacific carried a total of 1,717,200 passengers in January 2024, an increase of 66.4% compared with January 2023. The month’s revenue passenger kilometres (RPKs) increased 56.7% year on year. Passenger load factor decreased by 4 percentage points to 82.8%, while available seat kilometres (ASKs) increased by 64.2% year on year.

The airline carried 114,790 tonnes of cargo in January 2024, an increase of 20.7% compared with January 2023. The month’s cargo revenue tonne kilometres (RFTKs) increased 11.4% year on year. The cargo load factor decreased by 3.6 percentage points to 58.6%, while available cargo tonne kilometres (AFTKs) increased by 18.3% year on year.

Travel

Chief Customer and Commercial Officer Lavinia Lau said: “Following the peak of the Christmas season, we observed a decline in leisure demand during January, as expected. However, business travel demand resumed after the Christmas holiday; in particular, our Chinese Mainland routes performed exceptionally well, with very encouraging load factors in the premium cabins. Both inbound and outbound traffic to the Philippines experienced strong demand, especially for Christmas return traffic to destinations such as Dubai, New York, Los Angeles, London, and Amsterdam. As a result, the Philippines route emerged as a star performer this month with a load factor of close to 90%, surpassing all other short-haul routes. As Lunar New Year fell in the first half of February, we began to witness a noticeable increase in holiday demand from the Chinese Mainland towards the latter part of January. This demand was for travel both to Hong Kong and beyond.

Cargo

“Demand for air cargo traditionally softens in January after the year-end peak period and our tonnage was down 11% compared with December 2023. However, when compared with January 2023, tonnage was up by 21%. Demand started to improve from the second week of January and we observed an increase in tonnage across our entire network. Perishable shipments were the bright spot especially from the Southwest Pacific to Asia.

Outlook

“On the travel side, we have seen solid demand during the Lunar New Year travel peak, with outbound travel from Hong Kong focused on 7 to 12 February, and inbound travel concentrated on 17 and 18 February. Business travel demand has also been picking up after the Lunar New Year period, particularly on long-haul routes.

“In terms of cargo, the strong demand continued through to the start of the Lunar New Year holiday, but has now begun to ease. Looking ahead to March, Cathay Cargo will be the host airline for IATA’s World Cargo Symposium 2024. This is the first time that Hong Kong will host this major annual IATA event, which is scheduled to take place from 12 to 14 March. We eagerly look forward to welcoming experts and leaders from across the air cargo and logistics industry to our home city.”

The Cathay Group has paid the latest dividend of about HK$243.8 million due on the preference shares held by the Hong Kong SAR Government on 14 February 2024. To date, the Cathay Group has disbursed more than HK$2.2 billion in preference share dividends to the Hong Kong SAR Government. The Cathay Group bought back 50% of the preference shares in December 2023 and intends to buy back the remaining preference shares by the end of July 2024, subject to market conditions and its business operations at the relevant time.