During the month of October, Cathay Pacific operated more than ten thousand passenger and cargo flight sectors for the first time this year.
Cathay Pacific carried 2 million passengers in October 2024, that is an increase of 19.6% compared with October of last year, with revenue passenger kilometres (RPKs) increased by 19.1% when looking at the comparable month of 2023. Available seat kilometres (ASKs) also increased, up by 21.3%, while passenger load factor saw a drop of 1.6 percentage points compared to last year, averaging at 83.1% for the month.
Looking at the first ten months of 2024, and the total number of passengers carried by the Hong Kong based carrier increased by 27.4% to a total of 18.6 million, in addition to a 32.7% increase in ASKs and a 26.8% increase in RPKs, when compared with the same month of 2023.
Chief customer and commercial officer at Cathay Pacific, Lavinia Lau commented on the results: “October was another good month for our travel business, with strong demand for both leisure and business travel resulting in a solid load factor of 83% across our network.”
Lau added: “Business traffic also remained strong, driven by the various exhibitions and conventions in Hong Kong as well as the Canton Fair in nearby Guangzhou. This resulted in October seeing the highest number of passengers in our premium cabins of any month since the pandemic.”
In addition to passenger statistics, the airline also carried 142 thousand tonnes of cargo in October 2024, an increase of 14.3% compared with October 2023. The month’s cargo revenue tonne kilometres (RFTKs) increased 9.8% compared to 2023, while available cargo tonne kilometres (AFTKs) increased by 8.4%. Cargo load factors also saw an increase, rising by 0.8 percentage points to 61.5%.
The carrier also launched a new service between Hong Kong and Riyadh during the month.