Cathay Pacific passenger numbers rise in November as Hong Kong travel revival continues

CHINA (HONG KONG). Cathay Pacific today released its traffic figures for November 2022, which reveal very encouraging signs of recovery for the airline and its Hong Kong International Airport (HKIA) base.

The airline carried a total of 526,827 passengers last month, an increase of +652.1% measured against November 2021. The figure represents a -79.9% decrease compared with the pre-pandemic level in the same month of 2019.

Cathay Pacific Chief Customer and Commercial Officer Ronald Lam said: “We continue to see positive signs for our travel business. Sentiment and demand for travel out of Hong Kong continued to improve in November.

Bouncing back: The long climb back to pre-pandemic passengers numbers for Cathay Pacific is gathering momentum as Hong Kong further opens up for travel (Images courtesy of Cathay Pacific)

“We also saw increased visiting friends and relatives (VFR) traffic into Hong Kong, particularly from long-haul origins such as North America, Europe and the South West Pacific. Transit traffic via the Hong Kong hub also improved as we grow our network of destinations.”

Lam noted that Cathay Pacific – which earlier this month, as reported, opened its first downtown Hong Kong store – carried about 17,600 passengers a day in November, up from around 13,000 in October.

He added: “We continued to add more flights to more destinations last month, in particular to and from popular places in Japan as well as Southeast Asia, which saw huge demand from Hong Kong.”

Japan was the top destination in terms of passenger numbers in November, as load factor on these flights stayed high at 86%. November also saw the resumption of passenger flights to Denpasar (Bali), Tokyo (Haneda) and Zurich.

Cathay Pacific also welcomed yesterday’s news of the Hong Kong SAR Government’s latest measures to facilitate travel to Hong Kong. In particular, the airline was encouraged by the decision to remove the Amber Code restrictions under the Vaccine Pass for inbound persons entering Hong Kong, effective today.

The adjustments will help further boost sentiment for travel, it said, especially among inbound visitors, thereby aiding the resumption of travel activities and strengthening of network connectivity at HKIA.

Lam said: “As we approach the festive Christmas and New Year holiday period, travel demand continues to improve. We are further increasing our passenger flight capacity and resuming more destinations, including Sapporo, Fukuoka, Penang and Dhaka in December, as well as Phuket and Nagoya in January next year.”

He added: “We expect that short-haul routes to leisure destinations such as Japan and Southeast Asia will remain strong, continuing on into the Chinese New Year holiday peak as well.”

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