Their config is too premium, probably need to refurbish before entering into service. If they are for sale, maybe, but if only for lease, then maybe not.

CX group September 2025 result , 2.7 million passengers.

SIA group September 2025 result . 3.38 million passengers.

The gap is extremely large now.
Was not like this pre covid.

Ooops

Sure but the mainline gap isn’t very large at all. SQ 2.214m and CX 2.198m. That’s less than 1% between them.

In order to catch up with SIA, CX may need to further expand in UO.

Considering that's with CX having 52 10-abreast 777s flying I would have expected better

Eww. Relying on the awful 321s for expansion is bad enough.

CX should just rebrand UO. Add 2 rows of premium seats in the front. It is awfully easy to find 8 ppl in HK to pay more for legroom, services and the feeling of prestige with proper marketing.

Add some more services to the main cabin and charge a little more to be more differentiating, to totally kick out GBA and HX out of the market.

Otherwise it will just be sitting on this low 70s LF and seeing the money flushing away.

Yes, I could see that, maybe have a branding something to do with a Chinese mythical beast? You may be on to something!

Dragon minus minus could work well with much more leisure focus than KA…

yeah the stats dont lie. scoot is very powerful now, with over 90% load factor, a main reason for the difference.

tho at least the load factor went up from last year, and this year overall despite the massive expansion CX somehow has more LF than last year. proves the insane travel demand

if CX doesnt have enough planes for 2026-2027 (its A35K's are already in severe shortage now from what i see), the load factors would continue steadily rising, and maybe some foriegn airlines could finally have a chance in HKG again, they got hurt very hard by CX and UO. tho hope every airline in HKG can continue doing well

CX load factor in Sept drop from 86.7 in Aug to 82.3 in Sep

while UO load factor drop from 85.4% in Aug to 72.7 in Sep. this is a big drop.
wonder how much money UO is losing even though UO keep adding new routes.

For UO, it's the Japan rumour that destroyed summer bookings. Would be interested to see how it fares now especially with the yen continuing to be weak.

I strongly agree with you. It has always been unwise to replace an OW affiliated airline (KA) with a LCC (UO), which scrapped all benefits of frequent flyers and premium class travellers. It is also targeting the wrong market when they charge the same or even more than non-LCC competitors (HB, HX and sometimes CX).

But with the shortage of planes, there is a high chance than CX group would reply on UO for further expansion, in particular leisure-oriented routes.

What I dont get is why CX won't sell UO seats but if you book via CX you get a full service offering...

QF does this seamlessly with JQ and even with Indigo....
this literally increases both the revenue per seat and load factors and enables way more connections .

Swire has always hated the LCC model and never believed in it and just seems forced to do it and thus bought Hk express and run it kinda haphazardly

I often wonder how many more higher revenue premium passengers CX would get if it invested it's losses in HK Express into better CX products and services.