The early Easter holiday fueled a strong March performance for Cathay Pacific.
The Hong Kong home carrier released its passenger traffic figures which were up 42.4% compared with March 2023.
It carried a total of 1,883,404 passengers in March 2024.
The month’s revenue passenger kilometres (RPKs) increased 38.1% year on year.
However, due to higher seat capacity, passenger load factor was down 6.6% to 83.8%.
Chief Customer and Commercial Officer Lavinia Lau said: “Our travel business performed well in March with healthy demand across our services both leading up to and during the Easter holiday period.”
Student traffic from the UK was particularly strong ahead of Easter, and outbound and return traffic in general surged over the holidays.”
Lau said demand for premium seats remained strong.
This was driven by business travel to various exhibitions and trade shows that took place in Hong Kong in March.
The most notable ones were the Hong Kong International Jewellery Show and Art Basel.
Cathay also resumed direct flights between Bangkok and Singapore in March.
“Looking ahead to the Chinese Mainland’s forthcoming Labour Day ‘Golden Week’ holiday period, we are seeing a healthy increase in travel demand from the Chinese Mainland,” Lau added.
