Cathay Pacific Still Struggling To Recover To Pre-COVID Levels

While most of the world’s airlines have returned their fleets to service and are operating at or near pre-COVID capacity, it is troubling that a once-great airline is languishing so far behind. Cathay Pacific has endured more turmoil than almost any airline in the last few years, but now that Asia has fully reopened, it needs to find a way out of its pandemic hangover.

A slow recovery in Hong Kong

Yesterday, Cathay Pacific released its May traffic figures, and as any keen follower of the airline will notice, its recovery from the pandemic is moving very slowly. In May, the Hong Kong-based airline carried 1.68 million passengers at a load factor of 80.3%, with passengers up by 18.4% year-on-year (YoY).

Photo: Cathay Pacific

In its announcement, Cathay Pacific said that in the first five months of 2024, its two airlines, Cathay Pacific and HK Express, surpassed the 10 million mark, welcoming 11.2 million guests between January and May. The 2019 traffic report includes results for Cathay Pacifc and Cathay Dragon, which show combined passengers of 15.2 million between January and May.

Photo: Markus Mainka | Shutterstock

The demise of Cathay Dragon and the acquisition of HK Express have muddied the accuracy of comparing pre-pandemic numbers. However, on a straight comparison, between January and May 2024, the Cathay Pacific/HK Express combination carried 74% of the passengers handled by Cathay Pacific/Cathay Dragon in the first five months of 2019.

Yesterday’s numbers show that Cathay Pacific (Cathay) carried 8.8 million on its own in that period, but unfortunately, the 2019 report only shows the combined Cathay Pacific and Cathay Dragon total. Leaving that pre-COVID issue behind, Cathay is making good progress compared to last year but said it does not expect to reach 100% recovery until the first quarter of 2025.

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In May, Cathay increased available seat kilometers YoY by 28.0%, but revenue passenger kilometers grew by only 20.8%, pushing the passenger load factor down by 4.8 percentage points to 80.3%. That change is not unexpected as the airline adds capacity on new or resumed routes that may take some time to grow to expected demand levels.

Business travel is solid

In May, passenger numbers fell by 4% compared to April but grew by 18% YoY. Cathay Pacific Chief Customer and Commercial Officer Livinia Lau said May was a slightly quieter period compared to previous months as demand slowed down, particularly on the airline’s regional routes.

“Although leisure traffic from Hong Kong declined, we saw increased demand from various countries in Southeast Asia due to the school holidays there. Additionally, our long-haul services were boosted by the return of student traffic to Hong Kong and the Chinese Mainland from North America, resulting in 90% load factors on our United States and Canada routes.”

Photo: Vincenzo Pace | Simple Flying

For a major hub like Hong Kong, it is encouraging that demand for business travel is growing, supporting traffic on Chinese Mailand, North American and United Kingdom routes. This year, the airline has added services to Chennai (India), Colombo (Sri Lanka) and Barcelona (Spain), while HK Express has added flights to Beijing Daxing and Sanya in China, Bangkok Don Mueang in Thailand and Clark in the Philippines.

The group’s passenger airlines now operate to more than 80 destinations, increasing to 90 in 2025 as it rebuilds its international network, including services to the Saudi Arabian capital, Riyadh, from October this year.

Have you traveled with Cathay or HK Express this year? Let us know in the comments.