'Incredibly challenging' year slams Cathay traffic

Cathay Pacific and Cathay Dragon continued to witness sliding passenger traffic figures, with inbound traffic for November falling a whopping 46% year-on-year. This was a further slowdown compared to figures for October, which saw a 35% drop year-on-year. The carrier continues to see decreases in passenger numbers in its latest traffic figures, amid weakened travel demand, and as it braces for capacity cuts in the new year. For November, Cathay and Cathay Dragon carried about 2.62m passengers, a 9% drop year-on-year. This was less than the 2.7m passengers it carried in October. Passenger load factor fell 3.2 percentage points to 80.1%, while ASKs fell 1.5%. By market, Mainland China and Northeast Asia traffic remain weak, while demand to and from the US before the Thanksgiving week was likewise lower. <br/>