February 17, 2022 — Cathay Pacific today released its traffic figures for January 2022 that continued to reflect the airline’s substantial capacity reductions in response to significantly reduced demand as well as travel restrictions and quarantine requirements in place in Hong Kong and other markets amid the ongoing global COVID-19 pandemic.
Cathay Pacific carried a total of 24,699 passengers last month, a decrease of 18.8% compared to January 2021, and a 99.2% decrease compared to the pre-pandemic level in January 2019. The month’s revenue passenger kilometres (RPKs) decreased 23.4% year-on-year and were down 99% versus January 2019. Passenger load factor increased by 27.1 percentage points to 40.3%, while capacity, measured in available seat kilometres (ASKs), decreased by 74.8% year-on-year, and decreased by 97.9% compared with January 2019 levels.
Travel
Chief Customer and Commercial Officer Ronald Lam said: “We’ve had a very difficult start to 2022 with the accelerated spread of the Omicron variant and the further tightening of travel and operational restrictions, notably stricter quarantine requirements for Hong Kong-based aircrew. As a result, Cathay Pacific’s passenger flight capacity in January reduced by about 82% compared with December 2021, to about 2.1% of pre-COVID-19 levels. Meanwhile, passenger numbers dropped to an average of 797 per day. The load factor was about 40%.
“Both inbound and transit traffic were limited by the enhanced restrictions imposed by the Hong Kong SAR Government, while outbound demand also remained weak. Passenger traffic in January was largely generated from ex-Chinese Mainland flights via the Hong Kong hub to long-haul destinations in Australia, the US and the UK. We also saw some pre-Lunar New Year traffic between the Chinese Mainland and Hong Kong.
