Cathay Pacific released its traffic figures for September 2022, which the airline said continued to reflect the positive impact of further adjustments to the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region government’s travel restrictions and quarantine requirements.
Cathay Pacific carried a total of 265,845 passengers last month, an increase of 101.7% compared to September 2021, but an 89% decrease compared to the pre-pandemic level in September 2019. The month’s revenue passenger kilometres (RPKs) increased 102.2% year-on-year, but were down 84.1% versus September 2019. Passenger load factor increased by 26.7 percentage points to 72.5%, while capacity, measured in available seat kilometres (ASKs), increased by 27.8% year-on-year, but decreased by 83.8% compared with September 2019 levels. In the first nine months of 2022, the number of passengers carried increased by 124.7% against a 6.7% increase in capacity and a 130.6% increase in RPKs, as compared to the same period for 2021.
The airline carried 104,055 tonnes of cargo last month, a decrease of 20.6% compared to September 2021, and a 39.7% decrease compared with the same period in 2019. The month’s cargo revenue tonne kilometres (RFTKs) decreased 28.3% year-on-year, and were down 38.6% compared to September 2019. The cargo load factor decreased by 13.3 percentage points to 66.4%, while capacity, measured in available cargo tonne kilometres (AFTKs), was down by 14% year-on-year, and was down by 39.4% versus September 2019. In the first nine months of 2022, the tonnage decreased by 9.8% against a 23.7% decrease in capacity and a 31.8% decrease in RFTKs, as compared to the same period for 2021.
Chief Customer and Commercial Officer Ronald Lam said: “Cathay Pacific’s travel business continued to show improvement in September, helped by student traffic from both Hong Kong and the Chinese Mainland. Overall passenger numbers further increased month-on-month to over 8,800 per day, while load factor was 72.5%. Passenger flight capacity stood at about 16% of pre-pandemic levels. Demand for student travel to the US tapered down from the second week of September, but this was balanced by growing demand among UK-bound student traffic. As such, we increased the number of flights operated between Hong Kong and the UK from 111 sectors in August to 134 in September, with load factor on flights to London reaching 96%. We also added capacity on flights to Japan and Southeast Asia.. Aside from student traffic, inbound traffic to Hong Kong also improved, largely driven by demand from the US and Canada. The removal of hotel quarantine arrangements for passengers arriving in Hong Kong was a very welcome development that has helped boost sentiment for travel. In the last week of September, we saw a considerable increase in demand for flights to Singapore, Bangkok and Seoul.”
“Looking ahead,” Lam said, “we remain focused on adding as many passenger flights as we can, and have already added more than 400 flight sectors in October to and from regional and long-haul destinations since the September announcements by the Government. We have resumed passenger flights to five destinations this month – Madrid, Milan, Dubai, Kathmandu and Bengaluru – bringing our total number of destinations to 51 in October. As we said in June, our target is to double the number of destinations offered by the end of the year compared with the 29 we operated in January 2022, and we are on course to achieving that. We will continue to add more flights in the coming months. In addition to the flight sectors previously scheduled for November and December, we will be adding close to 700 and 1,200 sectors respectively. This will add more than half a million seats for passengers to choose from.”
Singapore Airlines says traffic also improved
In September 2022, the Singapore Airlines (SIA) Group saw continued momentum in travel recovery as demand remained strong across all route regions except for East Asia, where travel restrictions remained in place in some key markets.
SIA and Scoot, the two airlines in the group, carried a total of 2.1 million passengers in September 2022, up 2.5% from the previous month, on the back of a marginal month-on-month decline of 0.8%1 in group passenger capacity (measured in available seat-kilometres). Year-on-year, the group capacity was up 111.8%, reaching 67% of pre-Covid-19 2 levels during the month. The group passenger load factor (PLF) came in at 87.0% in September 2022. This was 1.6 percentage points higher on a month-on-month basis, and 68.5 percentage points higher on a year-on-year basis.
Cargo operations registered a load factor of 56.4%, or 31.0 percentage points lower year-on-year. Loads (freight tonne-kilometres) declined by 14.0% year-on-year, while capacity (capacity tonne-kilometres) expanded by 33.3% as increased passenger services resulted in higher bellyhold capacity.
At the end of September 2022, the group’s passenger network covered 100 destinations. There was a step-up in passenger services to East Asia during the month with SIA reinstating services from Beijing while Scoot resumed services to and from Fuzhou and Osaka. SIA served 74 destinations, while Scoot served 48 destinations. The cargo network comprised 107 destinations.
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