Cathay Pacific carried over 1 million passengers in January, up by 4,077%

HONG KONG—As months of social unrest in Hong Kong eased up, Cathay Pacific reported it carried more than 1 million passengers in January, up by 4,077 percent compared to January 2022.

The airline said this is a positive sign as it continues to rebuild and restore connectivity at the Hong Kong international aviationhub. Passengers from South Asia, the Middle East and Africa contributed much to increased traffic in Hong Kong, it said. For cargo, the airline saw an increase of over 28% to 95,139 tons carried in January 2023.

“The new year got off to a positivestart in January as Cathay Pacific carried more than one million passengers for the first timesince the start of the pandemic. We carried on average more than 33,000 passengers per day,up from about 26,000 per day in December 2022, and operated 18% more capacity than we didin December. We also continued to add more destinations in January, with our Phuket and Xi’anflights resuming,” said Cathay Pacific Chief Customer and Commercial Officer Lavinia Lau.

With quarantine-free travel between Hong Kong and the Chinese mainland resuming, passenger traffic between the areas is also expected to pick-up.

“Leisure travel demand over the Lunar New Year holiday was also strong, particularly from Hong Kong, with Japan, Bangkok and Singapore being the most popular destinations. Unfortunately, despite demand being high for Japan, we had to cancel some of our flights due to restrictions imposed by the Japanese authorities on the number of flights airlines are permitted to operate from Hong Kong,” said Lau.