Cathay Pacific carried 2.7 million passengers in August 2025, marking a 29.6% increase, while its low-cost subsidiary HK Express increased 35.8% to 802,091 passengers.
“Marking the second half of the traditional summer travel peak, August was another positive month for our passenger business,” said Cathay chief customer and commercial officer Lavinia Lau. “As a group, we are pleased to have carried an average of more than 110,000 passengers per day.”
Cathay Pacific's capacity climbed 32.2% and revenue passenger kilometres (RPK) improved 34.6%. The airline's passenger load factor was up 1.6 percentage points to 86.7%.
“We saw robust leisure demand throughout August, particularly from our home market and the Chinese mainland to various short-haul destinations, alongside a surge in outbound student traffic towards the end of the month,” continued Lau. “In addition, sentiment for travel to Japan has improved over July but still falls short of last year.”
HK Express' capacity was up 40.5% in the month, while RPKs were up 32.5%. Passenger load factor was down 5.2 percentage points to 85.4%.
“While HK Express saw some pickup in demand on its Japan routes in August, the load factor of these routes across the summer peak – July and August 2025 combined – was more than 20 percentage points lower than the same period in 2024, as the market demand to Japan has not fully rebounded to be in line with capacity,” commented Lau. “Looking at September, HK Express will continue to offer attractive fares to stimulate demand as it enters the low season.”
Cathay Cargo carried an extra 12.5% cargo in the month. Cargo capacity was up 14.5%, with cargo load factor down 0.6 percentage points to 56.4%.