Cathay Pacific today released its traffic figures for July 2023, which show that together with HK Express, the Cathay Group as a whole surpassed the milestone of having carried more than two million passengers in a month for the first time since the pandemic.
Cathay Pacific carried a total of 1,744,374 passengers last month, an increase of 693.8% compared with July 2022. The month’s revenue passenger kilometers (RPKs) increased 421.6% year on year. Passenger load factor increased by 16 percentage points to 89.3%, while capacity, measured in available seat kilometers (ASKs), increased by 328.2% year on year. In the first seven months of 2023, the number of passengers carried increased by 1,622% against an 818.9% increase in capacity and a 1,149% increase in RPKs, as compared with the same period for 2022.
Travel
Chief Customer and Commercial Officer Lavinia Lau said: “July marks the beginning of the traditional summer peak for passenger travel, and we are very pleased to see that demand has been strong. We continued to add back more capacity for our customers – 11% more compared with June – primarily on our North America, Europe, Japan, and Southeast Asia services catering to the rising demand for visiting friends and relatives (VFR) and leisure travel.
“Long-haul flights both to and from Hong Kong were especially popular in the first half of the month among VFR travelers. Subsequently, with the start of the school holidays in mid-July, there was a substantial increase in demand for popular short-haul destinations around Asia. All this resulted in July having a nearly 90% load factor.
Cargo
“While overall cargo demand in July remained at similar levels compared with June, e-commerce traffic continued to be a bright spot holding volumes up. The movement of seasonal fresh produce has also been active, contributing to good volume growth under our Cathay Fresh solution. All in all, cargo tonnage in July grew 4% month on month.
Outlook
“Looking ahead, we expect that the strong travel demand seen in July will continue through the rest of the summer peak in August. We continue to make good progress in our journey to rebuild the Cathay Group and connectivity at our home hub and, as a Group comprising Cathay Pacific and HK Express, we are now close to 60% of pre-pandemic passenger flight capacity levels. We are on track to achieve our target of 70% covering 80 destinations by the end of this year, and we are confident of reaching 100% by the end of 2024.
“On the customer experience side, we are delighted to again be welcoming guests to our lounge in Taipei. We were also very excited to provide customers with a brief glimpse of our all-new Business class experience, Aria Suite, which will be coming to our long-haul Boeing 777-300ER fleet in the second quarter of next year. We look forward to sharing more details with our customers in the coming months.
“On the cargo side, while we expect volumes to remain flat for the rest of the summer period, we anticipate demand will pick up from the end of the third quarter as we enter the traditional peak period for air cargo. Overall, we anticipate our cargo business will continue to perform solidly throughout the second half of 2023.”
As an additional update following the Group’s payment of the HK$1.5 billion deferred dividend on the HK$19.5 billion preference shares held by the Hong Kong SAR Government in June and announcement of its intention to pay all future preference shares dividends as they fall due, the Group has paid the latest dividend of HK$292.5 million due on the preference shares on 14 August 2023.
