Cathay Pacific's Interim Financial Report for 2025: Revenue Up Nearly 10%, Profit of HK$3.651 Billion, and Additional Order of 14 Long-haul Aircraft | Frontline News

Author | Huang Nan

Editor | Peng Xiaoqiu

Cathay Pacific Airways (00293.HK) released its interim results report for 2025 on August 6. Judging from the core financial data, the company's revenue in the first half of the year was HK$54.309 billion, a year-on-year increase of 9.50%; the profit reached HK$3.651 billion, an increase of 1.1% compared with the same period last year.

The performance was mainly due to the growth of passenger capacity and passenger volume. Although the yield decreased, the scale effect effectively offset this impact; at the same time, the cargo business remained resilient. Although the market fluctuated, the overall performance was stable; the decline in fuel prices also reduced operating expenses to a certain extent and increased the profit margin.

As one of the core businesses of the group, Cathay Pacific's passenger service performed remarkably. In the first half of 2025, the revenue reached HK$34.208 billion, a year-on-year increase of 14.0%; the passenger volume increased significantly, with the cumulative passenger volume reaching 13.6 million, and the average daily passenger volume exceeding 75,300, a year-on-year increase of 27.8%. Although the yield decreased by 12.3% due to intensified market competition, the load factor increased to 84.8%, higher than 82.4% in the same period last year, which reflected the company's effective strategies in capacity allocation and grasping market demand.

Among them, in the North Asia region, Lin Shaobo, the Chief Executive Officer of Cathay Group, pointed out that although the demand for traveling to Japan was strong in the first half of the year, the business of HK Express was challenged in the short term due to rumors related to the earthquake in Japan. However, the group has observed that the booking volume on Japanese routes is gradually recovering and has shown a significant upward trend since August.

In terms of the cargo business, Cathay Cargo's revenue reached HK$11.141 billion, a year-on-year increase of 2.2%. The cargo volume continued to grow, with the overall cargo tonnage increasing by 11.4% to 801,000 tons. Although the load factor slightly decreased to 58.6% and the yield was HK$2.59, a slight decrease of 3.4%, the group could cope with the challenges brought by changes in tariff policies by flexibly adjusting the route network, demonstrating the resilience of the cargo business.

Liu Kaishi, the Chief Customer and Commercial Officer of Cathay, said that although the overall cargo market faced more uncertainties, Cathay's business advantage lies in having a relatively complete global network. Taking the first half of the year as an example, affected by tariff factors, the freight demand from the Chinese mainland to the United States declined slightly, but the group flexibly adjusted and turned its attention to other regions covered by its network in a timely manner. For example, the freight demand in Southeast Asia and India and other regions was actually very strong. At the same time, in addition to e-commerce goods, Cathay will continue to actively explore and develop more types of freight, including fresh goods and drugs.

Based on the first-half performance, Cathay Group announced that it would pay the first interim dividend of HK$0.2 per share to ordinary shareholders, with a total amount of HK$1.3 billion. The amount of dividend per share is the same as that of the first interim dividend paid last year.

In addition, at the interim results press conference, Cathay Pacific announced that it would exercise the purchase option to purchase an additional 14 Boeing 777-9 aircraft, and the total number of orders for this model by the group increased to 35.

He Yili, the Chairman of Cathay Group, said that in the past few years, the group had implemented a full fleet renewal and expansion plan, including ordering more than 100 new aircraft, covering narrow-body aircraft, regional wide-body aircraft, long-haul wide-body aircraft and large cargo aircraft. The new aircraft orders, together with the investment in new cabin products, airport lounges and digital innovation, have made the group's total investment exceed HK$100 billion, so as to further consolidate Hong Kong's position as an international aviation hub and improve the customer experience to a higher level.

Since 2025, Cathay Pacific and HK Express under Cathay Group have announced or launched 19 new routes, and the route network covers more than 100 destinations around the world. More new destinations will be launched in the future.