Cathay Pacific today released its traffic figures for July 2024, which showed that the airline achieved a new milestone by carrying more than two million passengers in a single month for the first time since the pandemic.
Cathay Pacific carried a total of 2,008,225 passengers in July 2024, an increase of 15.1% compared with July 2023. The month's revenue passenger kilometres (RPKs) increased 16.1% year on year. Passenger load factor decreased by 3.8 percentage points to 85.5%, while available seat kilometres (ASKs) increased by 21.2% year on year. In the first seven months of 2024, the number of passengers carried increased by 32.5% to a total of 12,667,826, against a 39% increase in ASKs and a 31.6% increase in RPKs, as compared with the same period for 2023.
The airline carried 126,797 tonnes of cargo in July 2024, an increase of 9.6% compared with July 2023. The month's cargo revenue tonne kilometres (RFTKs) decreased 0.5% year on year. The cargo load factor decreased by 1.5 percentage points to 58.3%, while available cargo tonne kilometres (AFTKs) increased by 2.1% year on year. In the first seven months of 2024, the tonnage increased by 10.3% to a total of 846,261 tonnes, against a 9.9% increase in AFTKs and a 3.8% increase in RFTKs, as compared with the same period for 2023.
Travel
Chief Customer and Commercial Officer Lavinia Lau said: "Marking the start of the traditional summer travel peak, July was a milestone month for Cathay Pacific as the airline carried over two million passengers for the first time in a single month since our rebuild, while the 85.5% load factor was the highest of any month so far this year.
"Such robust demand was driven by the increased popularity of long-haul flights to and from Hong Kong in the first half of the month among students and those visiting friends and relatives. This was followed by a surge in demand for travel to popular short-haul destinations in Japan and Southeast Asia in the second half of July. In addition, we saw strong demand for flights to Paris due to the Olympic Games, and we were delighted to carry a significant number of athletes and spectators to attend this momentous sporting occasion.
Cargo
"Cargo demand remained strong in July with healthy year-on-year tonnage growth. Across our network, our tonnage was 2% higher than in June and 10% above July last year. Given July is traditionally a softer month for demand, this was encouraging and bodes well for August. In terms of commodity mix, we observed an uptick in perishable goods shipments from Southeast Asia and the South West Pacific into Hong Kong and the Chinese Mainland, and increased tonnage through our Cathay Expert services using the dedicated freighters for project shipments and outsized cargo. E-commerce shipments continued to be the main driver of volumes from the Greater Bay Area.
"We continue to enhance our special solutions, and in July we re-launched Cathay Courier with a focus on digitalisation to add greater transparency and reassurance for our customers when they choose to send their urgent shipments with Cathay Cargo. Customers will now be able to track their shipments online. Along with this newly added feature, Cathay Courier provides our customers with speed, guaranteed capacity and dedicated handling for their time-sensitive, high-value shipments.
Outlook
"Looking ahead, we expect that the robust travel demand seen in July will continue through August, while September will receive a boost from students returning to the United Kingdom ahead of the new school year.
"Earlier in August, we were delighted to welcome the launch of Cathay Pacific's new four-times weekly Ningbo service. These flights have been positively received by our customers, and complement the daily flights already operated by HK Express to and from the city. Additionally, HK Express has recently announced the launch of a new route between Hong Kong and Penang, Malaysia, which will commence service on 21 November 2024. Our customers can continue to look forward to more exciting destinations being added to our network as we work towards reaching 100 destinations as a Group within 2025.
"Concerning cargo, we expect that demand will remain at healthy levels as we head towards what we anticipate will be a strong peak from September until the year end. We will be increasing our freighter frequencies on transpacific routes and making full use of our long-haul passenger belly services to cater for customers' requirements."

Glossary

Terms:
Available seat kilometres ("ASK")
Passenger seat capacity, measured in seats available for the carriage of passengers on each sector multiplied by the sector distance.
Available tonne kilometres ("ATK")
Overall capacity measured in tonnes available for the carriage of passengers, excess baggage, cargo on each sector multiplied by the sector distance.
Available cargo tonne kilometres ("AFTK")
Cargo capacity measured in tonnes available for the carriage of freight on each sector multiplied by the sector distance.

Revenue passenger kilometres ("RPK")
Number of passengers carried on each sector multiplied by the sector distance.

Cargo revenue tonne kilometres ("RFTK")
Amount of cargo, measured in tonnes, carried on each sector multiplied by the sector distance.