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Cathay Cargo carried 13% more cargo in August this year than in the same month of 2024, while available freight ton kilometers increased by 15%, according to Lavinia Lau, Cathay Group chief customer and commercial officer
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In the first eight months of 2025, the total tonnage increased by 11% compared with the same period for 2024
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Lau said demand for capacity into the Americas remains robust, with their Cathay Dangerous Goods solution also seeing considerable growth
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For its passenger services, Cathay Pacific and its low-cost subsidiary HK Express carried a combined average of more than 110,000 passengers daily
Cathay Cargo carried 13% more cargo in August this year than in the same month 2024, while available freight ton kilometers increased by 15%, according to Lavinia Lau, Cathay Group chief customer and commercial officer.
In the first eight months of 2025, the total tonnage increased by 11% compared with the same period for 2024.
“We continued to see healthy year-on-year tonnage growth in August,” said Lau.
Demand for capacity into the Americas remains robust, she added, with their Cathay Dangerous Goods solution also seeing considerable growth, particularly from lithium batteries movements to Oceania.
For September, “we expect momentum to continue as the traditional air cargo peak begins, spurred by new high-tech product launches. To meet rising demand, we will be introducing additional freighter schedules, including a new weekly service to Madrid from 13 October 2025,” added Lau.
READ: Cathay Pacific carried 6.3% more cargo in Aug
For its passenger services, Cathay Pacific and its low-cost subsidiary HK Express carried a combined average of more than 110,000 passengers daily.
Lau said August was another positive month for Cathay’s passenger business, marking the second half of the traditional summer travel peak.
Cathay Pacific carried 30% more passengers in August 2025 compared with August 2024. Available seat kilometers increased by 32%. In the first eight months of 2025, the number of passengers carried increased by 28% compared with the same period for 2024.
“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,” said Lau.
In addition, sentiment for travel to Japan has improved over July but still falls short of last year, she added.
“The beginning of the month saw the resumption of our four-times-weekly service to Brussels, which has been well received by our customers and achieved a load factor of over 85%,” according to Lau.
Meanwhile, HK Express increased its passenger numbers and available seat kilometers by 36% and 41%, respectively, in August 2025 compared with August 2024. In the first eight months of 2025, the number of passengers carried increased by 32% compared with the same period for 2024.
Lavinia said: “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.”
Looking at September, HK Express will continue to offer attractive fares to stimulate demand as it enters the low season,” Lau also said.
