Cathay Group Registers Strong Start of the Year

DALLAS — Today, Cathay Group released its January 2025 results. Cathay Pacific (CX) carried 37% more passengers in January 2025 than in January 2024, increasing its Available Seat Kilometer (ASK) by 30.9% year-on-year. The airline’s load factor also increased by 3.9%. 

Cathay Cargo carried 13.7% more cargo in January 2025 than in January 2024. HK Express carried a record high of over 667,000 passengers in January 2025, an increase of 46.1% compared with January 2024, while Available Seat Kilometres (ASKs) increased by 39.7%.

Starting this month, the Cathay Group has revised the format of its monthly traffic figures announcements. This includes providing information separated across Cathay Pacific, Cathay Cargo, and, for the first time, HK Express in both the commentaries and the tables on the following page.

CX's January in Numbers

• In January 2025, Cathay Pacific recorded 11.27 billion available seat kilometers, reflecting a 30.9% increase compared to January 2024.
• Revenue passenger kilometers reached 9.73 billion, marking a 36.6% rise year-over-year.
• The airline operated 9,669 passenger flight sectors, a 30.2% increase, and carried 2,352,242 passengers, which represents a 37.0% growth from the previous year.
• The passenger load factor stood at 86.4%, improving by 3.6 percentage points compared to January 2024.

Comments from CX

Chief Customer and Commercial Officer Lavinia Lau said:

 “The Cathay Group has got off to a strong start in 2025. Over the Lunar New Year travel peak, on 25 January Cathay Pacific and HK Express combined carried over 110,000 passengers, marking a new post-pandemic record for the number of passengers carried on a single day.

“As a Group, we are continuing to enhance our passenger network for our customers and for Hong Kong as we strive to reach 100 passenger destinations worldwide this year. In January, Cathay Pacific announced the return of direct flights to Rome starting 5 June 2025, while HK Express launched its service to Sendai on 17 January. HK Express has also announced flights to Nha Trang and Ishigaki starting 3 April. So far, eight destinations are joining our Group passenger network in 2025, with more announcements still to come.”

Recently, Airways sat down with Chris van den Hooven, CX's Senior Vice President, Americas. Read out more about the airline's ambition here.

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