Cathay Group passenger traffic rises 9% in September as Cathay Pacific carries 2.45 million

Cathay Pacific and HK Express together carried about three million passengers in September 2026, 9% more than a year earlier, the Cathay Group said on 22 October. Cathay Cargo carried more than 150,000 tonnes, an increase of 14%.

Cathay Pacific itself carried 2,453,635 passengers, up 11.6%, with a passenger load factor of 84.2%, 1.9 percentage points higher than in September 2025, while capacity measured in available seat kilometres grew 9.0%. Over the first nine months of the year the airline carried 24,001,184 passengers, up 14.3%. HK Express carried 524,799 passengers, 0.8% fewer than a year earlier, and its load factor fell 5.2 points to 67.5% as demand softened after the summer peak.

Lavinia Lau, Cathay's chief customer and commercial officer, said outbound student travel from Hong Kong and the Chinese Mainland produced particularly high load factors on flights to the United Kingdom, and that premium cabin demand continued into September. She said the group expects demand to remain healthy in the fourth quarter, while noting that jet fuel prices remain at elevated levels. HK Express will add a four-times-weekly service to Hefei from 3 December.

The figures are the group's own operating statistics and include no punctuality or route-by-route data. They do not by themselves indicate changes to fares or to individual schedules.