Cathay Pacific budget carrier HK Express eyes mainland China for expansion, aims to boost capacity

In an interview with the Post, HK Express CEO Jeanette Mao offered an upbeat assessment of the carrier’s outlook, saying she expected capacity to grow 20 per cent to 30 per cent by the end of this year, reaching 170 per cent of pre-pandemic levels from the present 140 per cent.

She also revealed plans to increase the low-cost carrier’s fleet from 35 aircraft to 40 this year and to 60 by 2028, as well as expand the number of destinations from the current 24 to 30 by the end of 2024.

“Based on the number of flights, Northeast Asia – such as Japan, Korea and Taiwan – accounts for 70 per cent of our total flights while Southeast Asia accounts for around 25 per cent, with the remaining 5 per cent to mainland China,” she said on Tuesday.

“So we expect in the next two years, our number of flights to mainland China can increase from 5 per cent to maybe 10 per cent of the total network.”

HK Express returned to profitability last year for the first time since it was acquired by Cathay Pacific in 2019, making HK$433 million (US$55.3 million) compared with a HK$1.36 billion loss in 2022, owing to high demand for short-haul flights. Cathay acquired HK Express for HK$4.93 billion.

HK Express carried more than 4.1 million passengers in 2023, while the number this year hit an all-time monthly high of over 500,000 in March. It offered close to 24,000 flights last year.