Good afternoon. Welcome to Cathay Group's 2024 Interim Results Analyst Briefing. My name is Andy Wong, General Manager, Corporate Affairs for Cathay. Whether you're attending here in person or online, it is a pleasure to see you all, and thank you for joining us. Introducing our speakers for today: Chief Customer and Commercial Officer, Ms. Lavinia Lau. Chief Financial Officer, Ms. Rebecca Sharpe. We'll begin the presentations by Lavinia and Rebecca, after which we will open the floor to questions. In case you haven't scanned the QR code at the reception for an electronic copy of the slides, a copy, and also the video of today's presentation will be available for download on our Investor Relations page later on today. So, without further ado, let me invite Lavinia to start the presentations. Thank you.
Thank you, Andy. Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. Thank you very much for joining us today. So, I'll start off the session with talking a little bit about our group strategy on a high level, and then I will pass it to Rebecca to lead you through all the interim results details and then outlook. In terms of our group strategy, I think since the border reopened early last year, we had decided that the first two years after border reopening would be very important to us. So, during these two years, we have basically embarked on a dual-track strategy. So, on one hand, rebuilding is the most key theme, which many of you are also very concerned about.
But at the same time, other than rebuilding, we also focus a lot on investing for the future because we know that if we can pass through the first couple of difficult years, then we will be going on a very, very different path because with the Three-Runway System in implementation, there will be a lot of new opportunities for the group. So, let me talk about rebuild. So, of course, there are quite a few things that we need to rebuild. One of the most important of all is to rebuild our financials, but I'll leave Rebecca to detail on that part. So, let me talk about the other aspects of rebuild. Rebuilding our capacity, obviously, is a very important aspect.
I think earlier this year, we have already committed that we will be resuming to 100% capacity on a group level: Cathay Pacific plus HK Express flight frequency. We intend to return to 100% by the first quarter of next year. I'm pleased to advise that we have been really on a solid track on achieving that specific goal. In quarter two this year, we have already reached 80% of our capacity. As of now, we are still very confident that we'll be reaching 100% within the quarter one of next year. In terms of network reach, again, that's a very interesting topic to many people. On a group level, we are now flying to over 80 destinations already, the two carriers combined. In our plan, we will be going up to 100 destinations sometime next year.
Obviously, when we continue to rebuild capacity, we need to ensure that we have the right manpower or people with us to operate those flights and to deliver our service. So, again, on that front, I think I'm pleased to advise that we are, again, on track. So, our retention, in terms of overall attrition, I think we have more or less normalized to pre-COVID levels. And in terms of recruitment, last year, that was sort of like a record already for us already because in terms of net workforce, last year we added around 3,000, but this year the target is even higher. We are going to add a net of 5,000 headcount, bringing our total group employee numbers to 29,000. But again, I think we are on good track to achieve that target.
In terms of rebuilding pride, obviously, during the COVID years, again, it has been very difficult because at times we have been really operating very few flights. And in a way, we might have slipped out of some of our customers' minds. So, these couple of years, we have been doing a lot in order to bring our customers back by enhancing our services, by giving them more value to travel on us. And I'm, again, pleased to say that we have been seeing some good results from that. If you recall, last year in the same forum, we announced that actually, after two very difficult years, Cathay Pacific, the premium airline, went back to top 10 in a couple of the most important industry awards. And this year, I think we made another step forward.
In two of the most important industry awards, Skytrax and AirlineRatings, we got back into top five. I think that's a pretty big deal for us. It not only boosts our internal morale, but it also shows that, because these are awards voted by our customers and industry experts. It did give us recognition for what we have put in. We are very pleased with winning these awards. That's sort of like the rebuild track that I mentioned that these two years we are focusing on. But apart from rebuilding, we always know that we need to invest in order to have a really the kind of future that we want to go into.
So, I think throughout these, since the borders reopened in the last 18 months, we have been announcing quite a few fleet investments already, which I think you must be quite familiar about, especially the first three. But just let me recap. So, in terms of fleet, basically in the next few years, every year we'll have new aircraft, a new fleet joining us. So, starting from next year, we are still looking forward to our 777-9, our flagship fleet, which will house the new first class. And then from 2026 onwards, so last year we also announced that we'll be purchasing more narrowbody aircraft, A320 and A321neo for both Cathay Pacific and HK Express. And then also, last year, late last year, we have announced that we will be buying additional widebody freighters to help continue to cement Hong Kong's number one cargo aviation hub status.
We have placed an order for 6 A350 freighters end of last year. Today, if you have read our stock exchange announcement, I think this is really fresh from the oven. We are going to place another important fleet order to complement our modern fleet. And so we will be, so this is really a fleet which will help support the Cathay Pacific's regional network. Today, we do have 777-300 and Airbus A330ceo aircraft doing that job. But of course, we need to look for aircraft to replenish that fleet. We have decided that we'll place an order for 30 A330neo aircraft, which will start to be delivered from 2028. Again, this will really strengthen our overall network. In terms of cabin experience, obviously the whole customer experience will continue to elevate.
So similar to fleet, again, from now on every year, we'll have something new to help provide more value for our customers so as to increase their willingness to pay and then travel with us. Starting from this year, I've been talking about the 777-300ER, the whole retrofit program for some time now. I'm again glad to say that the whole Aria Suite, the whole new business class experience, and the new brand new premium economy cabin, they will be unveiled really, really soon. Again, watch out for that. That is for this year. Then next year, again, once we have got the 777-9 flagship fleet, we will have new cabins, especially the first class cabin over there.
We have also announced already that for existing regional widebody fleet, the A330ceo, starting from 2026, we'll also be refreshing all the cabins, especially the business class cabin, where we will be having a regional flatbed product on there again to elevate the overall customer experience. Well, and then in terms of cabins, it's not just only the hub products. We'll continue to improve all our soft offerings as well. So for those who have recently traveled with us, hope you can tell that on the dining front, we are continuing to up our investment there. And also in terms of Wi-Fi, we have announced and actually it's already starting to roll out complimentary Wi-Fi for business class passengers. Actually, as of now, all our A350 fleet, so all 48 aircraft, has been equipped with complimentary Wi-Fi for business class passengers already.
And we are now in the process of rolling that out progressively to our other fleets as well. So after business class, then we also promised that we'll be offering complimentary Wi-Fi to our Diamond members . So again, for the next few months, we'll be progressively rolling that out as well. And on the ground, again, ground experience is also part of the overall customer experience. And lounges are really our signatures. So again, there will be ongoing investments in our lounge products again to increase customers' stickiness to us in a way. So the Beijing lounge has just been closed for renovation, and it will be reopened next summer. So it will be a brand new lounge following the whole design style that we have as in our Hong Kong flagship lounges.
So Beijing obviously is a very strategic port for us, and it will be really great to have our signature lounge over there. And then in 2026, again, another major breakthrough for us. New York, again, a very, very important station for us. But throughout the years, it has been difficult for us to; it has actually been impossible for us to have our own lounge. We can't find the right position or location for it. But we have now recently also announced that in 2026, we'll be moving to a new terminal in the JFK Airport, and there will be a very good location for us to actually construct our own lounge. So from 2026, we will also have the Cathay Pacific signature lounge over there.
And then in terms of HKIA, obviously our home port, we have very, very good lounges in there, but I think it's also time to really refresh them. So starting from end of this year, we'll start to progressively refresh and modernize our Hong Kong flagship lounges to the next level. So I guess this is what I want to communicate. I hope you can get a gist of what we are doing. So now that we are almost closing the chapter on our rebuild journey, we'll turn our focus to invest for the future. And investing in a lot of things, investing in our fleet, cabin products, this is all for the customer experience. Obviously, we'll also continue to invest in our own people, invest in our brand so as to make us a brand that our vision is to be one of the world's greatest service brands.
I think we are moving with strong determination towards that. With that, I'll pass it to Rebecca to actually go through all the financial details.
Thank you, Lavinia. Good afternoon, everyone. I'll add my welcome to this afternoon session. I'm very happy to be talking about a profitable result for the first half of 2024. Now, in the pack that's been circulated, there are quite a few slides. I won't cover all of them in the next 15 minutes -20 minutes, but of course, happy to take questions at the end and subsequent to today's session. Of course, you can ask questions on any of them, and I hope you find them somewhat a useful reference point for your commentaries, etc. So without further ado, let's start with the six of our key financial metrics.
Through the course of the presentation, I will talk through each of these, but the one perhaps I'll cover in a little bit more detail here is the announcement today that we will be paying a first interim dividend of HKD 0.20. So this is the first time we've paid a first interim dividend in October since October 2019. So 5 years have passed since we've been able to do this. This will cost us in the region of HKD 1.3 billion. And as I mentioned when we talked about the annual result, we do want to get back to a similar dividend payment practice as we had prior to COVID, whereby overall for a year, we'll distribute approximately 50% of profit after tax. And the other sort of, I suppose, dimension to this is the dividend we would announce as the first interim dividend.
Typically, we'll be a bit more prudent with this. Of course, nobody knows for sure what will happen in the subsequent months. So yes, today is the announcement of the first interim dividend in respect to the full year 2024. And also just to note that we have paid dividends on the preference shares in the course of this year, both in February and then on the 31st of July when we redeemed the shares. But I'll talk a little bit more about that later. So if we move on to start talking about the profit, the performance for our first half was strong. As we talked in March when we presented the annual results, we talked about the expectation that there will be normalization of yield.
That is part of what we're seeing in terms of the numbers, in terms of the difference between the first half of last year, which if you remember was truly exceptional. Hong Kong had just opened up, and we had really, really strong demand for travel and very low capacity. On this slide, what we're trying to show you is the different levels of our profit. The first line being the Cathay and subsidiaries profit before any exceptional items, before any associate numbers. At that level, we generated HKD 3.8 billion versus the HKD 4.7 billion, HKD 4.8 billion for the same period last year. At the bottom line, we generated HKD 3.6 billion. That's the group attributable level compared to the HKD 4.3 billion we did in the first half of last year.
The chart on the right, you can see the trajectory over the past 5 years for the first half results splitting between the Cathay and subsidiaries numbers, the associates numbers, and the exceptional numbers. You can see another element in this chart is the significant improvement from the associates contribution. Still a little bit of a loss, but significant improvement from that we saw in the first half of last year. If I perhaps talk a little bit more about how we bridge from the number we saw in the first half of 2023 to the number in the first half of 2024, this is where you can see what I'm referring to in terms of yield normalization. You can see that we get a favorable variance from the increase in capacity, generating far more revenue from a volume perspective.
Of course, costs that would offset that, but net that's a favorable number. But then the yield coming down as they have started to normalize is offsetting some of that benefit. And then the other key items that we comment on here are obviously the exceptional item we had in the first half of last year and the improvement in the associates' result as a number of HKD 3.6 billion profit generation for the first half of 2024. I normally include this slide just for reference. These are the exceptional items. So these were much more significant in the first half of last year. This year, we've got a similar, but a much, much smaller number in terms of a deemed gain on the disposal. So that's just where Air China issued some additional A shares, but we didn't participate. And therefore, we get diluted a little bit.
But from an accounting perspective, it's treated as a gain or a deemed disposal. We also reversed an impairment on an aircraft that came back into service in the first half. So during COVID, we'd made a provision for impairment on that particular aircraft, and it's returned to service. So we reversed that provision that was made. In terms of fuel costs, of course, our fuel cost bill increased significantly. We increased our capacity significantly. You'll see on the latest slides the percentage changes. But of course, the biggest driver for our fuel cost bill going up was that increase in capacity. You can see that, as I always have on this slide, the fuel hedging policy, because many people ask about this. There's been no change to our fuel hedging policy. We're continuing to execute it as we have done for the past few years.
The chart on the right of this slide sets out the hedging that we had in place at the end of June. So you can see that roughly for the 12 months from June through to the first half of next year, we've got around 25% of our estimated fuel consumption hedged. The next slide is to give you a flavor of our financing costs and our interest rate profile. So the chart on the left is just the cost we've incurred in net financing charges. So that's costs offset by financing income, interest income by half year. And then on the right-hand side, the split. So we do carry some of our borrowings with fixed rates and some are on floating rates. Roughly, we'll be somewhere around 50%. You see it has been quite consistent over the past few years.
Then in terms of cash flow, so this chart maps out what our cash inflows and outflows have been during the first six months of 2024. You can see the strong operating cash generation that we've seen, the larger amount of loans that we've repaid versus new financing that we've drawn down. You can also see in here the dividends paid. Just for reference, this is the dividend that we announced with our annual results was paid in May of this year. That in the amount of around HKD 2.67 billion was paid in the first half together with some of the preference shares dividends. That's the sort of big outflow in respect of dividends paid.
So overall, we've ended up at the end of June with a liquidity level of $25.4 billion, which on the next slide, there we go, is set out here for you. So the chart on the left shows our liquidity balance for the different points in time across the end of the year and the 30th of June for this year. So you might be wondering why have we gone back up in terms of liquidity level at the end of June, given that we talked about our liquidity levels being sort of lower than we'd carried them in the pandemic. And that's because we were building up cash to pay the preference shares in July. So on the 31st of July, we bought back the remaining 50% of the preference shares from the government. That was in the amount of HKD 9.75 billion.
So in June, we were building up cash in order to facilitate us being able to do that. In terms of debt and gearing, which is shown in the chart on the right, you can see that our debt progressively has come down over the past five years. Our gearing on the pre-HKFRS 16 basis was 0.61. Before I move on to the next section, which takes you in a little bit more detail on the lines of business, although I won't touch on every single slide and every single point, I did just want to sort of pause for a little bit of something a bit different. You may well know that Cathay has always been a promoter of sports. We are proud sponsors of the Sports Federation and Olympic Committee here in Hong Kong.
Of course, in the spirit of it being Olympic season, before I start the next section, I just want to share a little video. Of course, we're very proud of what our Hong Kong athletes have achieved. But just to break up the presentation a little bit and uplift you all with happy music, I hope you found that of interest. But moving on to our different lines of business. If I start with premium travel, so I've touched on this hugely significant milestone of us redeeming or buying back the balance of the preference shares on 31st of July. We also achieved another significant milestone in June, and that was the return of our last aircraft that had been parked overseas. If you remember, we parked, I think it was about 95 aircraft overseas during the pandemic, and we've been progressively bringing them all back.
In June, the last one made her journey back to this part of the world. The management of that, moving all the aircraft overseas, looking after them while they were overseas, and then bringing them all back again, was a huge undertaking and significant contribution by all the teams and external parties involved. So we're very, very happy to see that all our fleet are now reunited once again in Hong Kong. But again, as Lavinia was touching on, sort of our rebuild journey, this is definitely another milestone in that with having all the aircraft back. So if I turn then to some of the statistics or metrics for the travel side of our business, you can see here we saw on the highlight slide the revenue number had increased.
The big part of the revenue increase is the premium travel and travel part of our business. You can see that's gone up by 20%. And you can also see on this slide, the passenger numbers have gone above the 10 million mark in the first half. So a 36% jump compared to the first half of last year. This is, of course, as we continue to add passenger flights and destinations in support of the strong demand for travel that we're seeing in our part of the world. This slide we've shared many times before where we map out for every half year the different elements of capacity, load factor, and yield. And you can see the sort of trajectory over this timeframe. That increase in capacity on the passenger side of our business, you can see there 42.7% increase compared to the first half of 2023.
The load factor in the first half of this year came off a little bit from that exceptionally high load factor in the first half of 2023 when we were all really excited to get back on planes again and everybody I spoke to was going to Japan. And then in terms of the yield, as we talked back in March, we expected yields to start normalizing, and we have seen that. So if I look at the different sort of sectors that we operate in, the short-haul regional yields, I would say, are pretty much normalized. The long-haul still may be a little bit to go. But that has therefore had an impact on our numbers offset, as I said earlier, to a large degree by the increase in capacity.
If I turn to cargo, we know how the team in cargo have won a number of accolades over and above the ones that Lavinia was referencing earlier. And for cargo, we've had a very solid performance in the first half of this year. So you can see again some of the key statistics here. As we have increased our passenger network, of course, a lot of our cargo is carried on the bellies of our planes. So that drives an increase in capacity available to the cargo business to use. But revenue overall for this part of the business has only increased slightly. It equates to, I think, roughly 25% of our revenue for the first half. And you can see that the cargo that we carried in the first half went up by about 10%.
So again, similar chart to the one we have on the travel side of the business, capacity, load factor, and yields across the six-month periods. So with some increase in capacity compared to the first half of 2023, load factors remain somewhat similar. And the yields have come off a little bit, but not that significantly. So that has remained robust. The demand for e-commerce, etc., remains good for the cargo business in our first half of 2024. Our third line of business, lifestyle. So for the lifestyle part of the business, we celebrated the 25th anniversary of the Asia Miles program. I wonder how many people in the room or online were Asia Miles members from day one and have been with us in the program for 25 years. Not sure. I won't ask you to raise your hands just in case.
But that has given us an opportunity to offer a wide range or diverse range of campaigns and miles rewards in celebration of this, another milestone that we've achieved with this program. The other thing we've done in the first half in this line of business is refreshing our Cathay Holidays product. So you might have seen online all the different offerings you can now get through Cathay Holidays. So this part of the business has also had some milestones, you could argue, in the first half of 2024. Our fourth line of business is, of course, our low-cost travel subsidiary. So they achieved 147% of the 2019 flight frequencies by the end of June. So a big sort of increase for them in terms of what they were offering for their customers.
In conjunction with this, they did have a challenging first half and made a very small loss compared to the profit that they made in 2023. This is due to a combination of two key factors. You may or may not be aware that the HK Express flies the A320neo aircraft, or for some of their fleet is the A320neo. That has the Pratt & Whitney engine on the geared turbofan, which has had a number of issues. As a result, we've had a number of aircraft on the ground and remain on the ground whilst we wait for those engines to be repaired. Of course, that impacts their capacity they're able to offer. The other key factor is the normalization of yields in this part of the world. As more regional capacity has come back, the competition brings the yields down.
So they've had a couple of different dimensions. But overall, we're very confident in the long-term future of HK Express, as this will be a big part of our growth story into the future. Other subsidiaries and majors or associates won't dwell on this one. I've touched on the fact that the losses from the associates have significantly reduced in the first half.
Our service subsidiary's performance across the board has improved in the first half of this year off the back of the increasing capacity that we're operating. Not pressing this button hard enough. Okay. If I move then on to costs. So again, as we talked, I think back in March, the increasing capacity, of course, drives a lower unit cost for the business. So you can see that's reduced down to HKD 2.32 for the overall first half. I think for the full year last year, it's HKD 2.47.
So we're continuing on the downward trajectory in terms of our cost per ATK, excluding fuel and tax. The variances, you can see there in terms of percentage, are typically driven by how variable that cost category is. For example, depreciation is pretty fixed, so that doesn't change particularly much. Things like in-flight service and passenger expenses, of course, they change quite a lot because it's dependent on the number of passengers we're carrying. Of course, as Lavinia mentioned, we've invested a little bit more in dining, etc. Those costs will also come through here. Overall, again, we're on the wrong track in terms of heading in the right direction with our cost per unit coming down. Sustainability. You're all aware, I'm sure, of our ambition to be for sustainability leadership.
This slide just references a number of the things that have happened in the first half. I'd encourage you, if you haven't had the opportunity to look at our sustainability report for last year that was published in the first half of this year. It is very comprehensive. Our two key areas of focus as an airline, of course, getting to our 10% use of SAF, sustainable aviation fuel, by 2030, and our goal of net zero by 2050. The main areas of focus in support of that are around sustainable aviation fuel and contracting more and more of that in order to meet those goals. The other area that we focus on is the single-use plastics. Of course, this is something that our passengers, customers see every day, very visible. It's something we're trying hard to reduce.
And so in our sustainability report, you'll have seen that we do have a target in that space as well to reduce the passenger-facing single-use plastic items on our Cathay Pacific flights to 1.5 pieces down from the 7.7 pieces in 2019. So there's a lot of hard work going on in this space. It's not easy. It's challenging. But yes, lots to be done in the sustainability leadership journey. So if I move on to Outlook, I'll start with financial. So this slide just to capture the key financial-related matters in sort of the second half and beyond. So as I say, on 31st of July, we bought back the remaining 50% of the Preference Shares. And that meant that we bought back the total in December and July was HKD 19.5 billion that the government invested in the Cathay Pacific group.
And the dividends we paid in total across the period of the holding of those shares was HKD 2.44 billion. As I've already mentioned, but just to remind, we are paying a dividend of HKD 0.20 per share. That'll be paid in October. And now that we've repaid the preference shares, we anticipate maintaining a lower but healthy level of liquidity going forward. So similar to that that we carried pre-pandemic levels. And another thing you may have seen in today's announcements is that we are committed to invest over HKD 100 billion over the next 7 years in fleet, product, the lounge experiences, etc., etc. This is part of our journey going forward that Lavinia alluded to. In terms of the travel side of the business, I won't touch on all of these. They're here more as reminders for you.
But something that I do want to mention because we've not covered it thus far is the supply chain. So the aviation supply chain is challenged. The whole ecosystem is challenged, not just here in Hong Kong, but globally. We continue to face constraints in terms of parts supply and the big manufacturers, Boeing, Airbus, in terms of their production capacity getting back up to the levels they want. It is all under constraint. And therefore, we see that that will continue to have an impact on the industry for some time to come. The other thing I was going to mention on this slide, I briefly touched on it earlier. In terms of the normalization, as I say, I think sort of for our short-haul regional flights, we're pretty much back to normal levels. But we do see some further normalization potentially in our long-haul yields.
For cargo, we're anticipating that the second half of the year, which is traditionally the peak period for our business, we're anticipating that they'll continue to see healthy demand similar to that that we've seen in the first half of the year. Of course, we continue to adjust capacity to meet the customer needs. The part of our investment, that HKD 100 billion investment that I talked about, includes the 6 freighters for this part of the business that we announced some time ago now. If I can just summarise, this slide is setting out for you our key outlook points for easy reference. If I think about the overall story, overall picture, the first half of 2024 has been a strong financial performance, building on the 2023 full year strong performance. It is less than the first half of 2023.
This is principally attributable, as we expected to be the case, that the yields would start to normalize. Our last aircraft has come back from overseas. The strong financial result has enabled us to buy back the remaining preference shares and also to announce the dividend today as a first interim dividend for 2024. Going forward, we've got a very clear strategy that we'll complete our rebuild within the next few months. Then we'll move on to executing against our investment of HKD 100 billion or more than HKD 100 billion in the next seven years. As we look to modernize and grow our fleet, as we look to invest in our experience for our customers in terms of cabin, in terms of lounge, digital.
Of course, the modernization of the fleet will help to improve our sustainability impact as well. So this is how we'll work towards taking the Cathay Group to new heights and achieving our vision of becoming one of the world's greatest service brands. Thank you.
Okay. Well, thank you, Lavinia and Rebecca, for your presentations. We'll now open the floor to questions. If you would like to ask a question, kindly raise your hand. I'll call on you, and one of our colleagues will hand you a microphone. Please state your name and organization before asking the question. So please go ahead.
Gentlemen. Thanks. It's Tim Bacchus from Bloomberg Intelligence. Hi, Lavinia and Rebecca. I'm one of those guys who's been around about 25 years in Asia Miles. Congratulations. Just to date myself, I guess. So maybe the first question would be on yields. That's usually what we tend to lead with in the investment community. So you say yields have normalized on the short-haul side, a bit still higher on the long-haul side. But when you look at first half this year versus five years ago, it's still 25% higher, $0.68 versus $1.55. So is that what the new normalization looks like? When you say normalized, do you feel like they've got to stay higher because unit costs are higher in the new world that we're living in post-pandemic? Or what does that mean exactly in terms of normalization?
Sure. Well, thanks for the question. So when we say that yields have normalized, especially fares have normalized, I think we are specifically talking about the ex-Hong Kong fares. This is where we are at. So if you look at ex-Hong Kong fares, yes, truly. The regional fares, if you look at it, I think everyone should be able to get very good deals. Japan is HKD 3,000-HKD 4,000. So I think these are really going back to normal fares already. Ex-Hong Kong economy fares, they have normalized.
But the yields that we have shown in our report, obviously, they are blended yields, right? It's across our entire network. So it includes ex-Hong Kong into Hong Kong and then connecting traffic. So all those yields together, yes, I think we're still seeing an increase compared with 2019. But that's a different reason rather than the whole mix needs to be considered. But specifically talking about ex-Hong Kong fares, we really have seen them normalized, like we said. But I think you're also correct, of course, over the years, there are inflationary pressures and all that.
So when we say normalized, I think we should take that into context as well.
So the follow-up would be, is the trajectory, so 11% or so decline year-on-year, is that something that we should expect to see begin to level off, or it's kind of similar type trends in the second half and into next year?
Well, I don't have a crystal ball, but I think we just have to see. I think currently we are seeing the regional market, because of course, apart from us adding more capacity, we also see competitors doing the same. So when supply demand got more balanced, fares will normalize. This is expected. This is not something that we are not expecting.
So currently, the long-haul yields are, in a way, normalizing not as quickly because in terms of supply side, well, we are adding quickly, but we do see some of our competitors not coming back yet. So I think second half, it really depends on how the whole supply situation works out as we continue to add supply. And we'll need to see whether demand can hold up. Yeah.
If I could just slip in a cargo one then too. So cargo yields down 3%. Looks pretty good compared to some other peers in the region, Singapore Airlines, maybe a little bit less than Taiwan-based carriers. You didn't mention in your comments or in the release anything about, say, the disruption from Red Sea shipping, which other airlines have been benefiting from. Can you just comment on how much of that is impacting? Is it material or not material in terms of modal shift from sea to Cathay Pacific? Thanks.
Well, I don't have a breakdown of what each of the factors contribute towards our yield. But I think the Red Sea situation, I think all of the carriers, all the airfreight industry in a way might have benefited a bit from that. And we are a part of them. But I think to us, really, the biggest story is still the whole booming of e-commerce, especially out of GBA area. I think that's the factor which contributes to our robust cargo performance the most.
Okay. Thank you. Next question. Okay. The gentleman on the right.
Thank you for taking my question. This is Perry from UBS. First of all, I just want to follow up in terms of the passenger demand. Do you have any color in terms of how demand trends into the summer holiday season, which is usually one of the busiest periods for airlines? And I also want to follow up in terms of the low-cost carrier situation. Obviously, this first half of the result, we have incurred some net losses. And we also see the passenger load factor trend lower. I'm curious as to what kind of load factor will we see the break-even point in terms of the net profit?
Shall I briefly talk HK Express, and then you do the color? Can't comment specific on such specific questions around break-even points, etc. I think the impact this first half of the yield normalization with the increased capacity and competition in our part of the world has had an impact.
But the Pratt & Whitney engine issue is something that is an impact that hopefully over time, as those engines get repaired, we will see a benefit from that sort of change in situation. But no, apologies, I can't comment on specifics of break-even points, etc. Okay. And in terms of demand, I think, well, out of Hong Kong, we are still seeing very good demand. I guess it's just that overall, the supply has even grown bigger. I think demand, especially during the summertime, or we are increasingly seeing, for example, during long weekends, I think in the past couple of months, we have a few long weekends. And that's where we see demand coming really strong and last minute. So I think overall, demand is still strong. It's just that competition is getting keener. And that's particularly affecting the regional side where demand is coming back quicker.
So in that sense, HK Express, because they are primarily a regional carrier, so they do face even stiffer competition or stiffer pressure than in Cathay Pacific. In Cathay Pacific, we are, of course, a global carrier. We have a comprehensive regional plus long-haul network. And we do carry different types of travel, not just ex-Hong Kong to Hong Kong, but also connecting. So we do have more levers to pull on to counter any demand or supply situation, so to speak. Yeah.
Thank you. Okay. Perhaps, oh, maybe let me address some questions from online first, if I may. Okay. Thank you. So there's a question from Jeffrey. This is specifically on liquidity. So I think the question goes, what is the appropriate level of available liquidity? The results mentioned that there's a lower level of liquidity than during the pandemic.
Is this below? I think what he meant is HKD 20 billion. That was the number in 2019. Thank you.
Okay. Thank you. Is that Andrew? I can't see the online. But so yes, I think when we say about liquidity, if you remember, we carried higher liquidity through the pandemic because of uncertainty. Obviously, things were changing by the day. So carrying a higher level of liquidity was important. But our plan currently is to sort of go back to the levels that we saw pre-pandemic sort of for many years. So somewhat similar to where we were at the end of 2023, I think you'll find is similar to prior years. So somewhere around there or thereabouts.
Okay. Thank you. Rebecca, I'm going to stay with you. So it's about the dividend policy. So can you remind us of the dividend policy? Can we expect 50% of the payout for 2024?
Our dividend policy is that we will be aiming to pay or distribute approximately 50% of our profits after tax. But of course, that's subject to the economic circumstances at the time, our balance sheet at the time, etc. But as a rough rule of thumb, and as we disclose in our annual report, that is our typical policy. Yes.
Okay. Thank you. Some more questions from online. It's on fuel. What drives the 5.2% increase in the fuel consumption on a per million ATK basis?
That's driven by the older aircraft coming back. If you remember in 2023, we typically would use the A350s, which are far more fuel efficient. But as we've brought all our aircraft back into service progressively, some of the older aircraft burn a bit more on a per ATK basis.
Therefore, that's what drives the higher consumption in this first half versus last first half.
Okay. Thank you. So maybe one more from online before I come back to you. This one is specifically on cargo. So the question goes, how to view the cargo business in the second half of this year? Will you revise the guidance on cargo yield to the upside?
I think, like I mentioned before, I think cargo, actually, the demand has been pretty robust this year, driven by the very strong e-commerce out of GBA. I think at this particular point in time, summer is traditionally a slack season for cargo, but we are still seeing good demand. So I think we have reasons to believe that this trend should continue into the peak season.
Okay. Thank you, Lavinia. So maybe coming back to a question here. Maybe I'll just focus on the cost side. So staff, particularly. So staff cost only up 17% in the first half. That was less than the 22% ATK increase. So unit staff cost, if you will, is declining. Yet you're adding a lot of staff, 15% last year, 20% this year. So can we expect to see higher staff? Some of the hiring that you've done late last year, early this year, will flow into the second half numbers such that that cost increase, we can expect to see a little more higher trajectory.
So maybe something I'll talk to that question, but maybe something worth sort of reminding people in connection with all the questions on yield. We're still not operating at full capacity. So we're aiming to get back to the 100% flights level in the first quarter of next year.
So we've still got some efficiencies and economies of scale to come through the rest of this year. Yes, adding back people, we're adding them because we need them to support the capacity. They're not being added sort of as a fixed headcount, if you like, they're being added driven by the capacity increase. So yes, sure, the staff cost will go up because we need more people to deliver the capacity. But it's going to be proportional to the capacity that we're flying. So yes, to answer the question, the numbers, the cost will go up, but it should be contributing to the per ATK calculation.
Thank you, Rebecca. Okay. Well, I think we have addressed all the questions in the room and also online. So thank you to our speakers. And thank you everyone for joining us. So this concludes the briefing for today. If you have any further questions, please email them to ir@cathaypacific.com. Thank you very much for joining us. Have a good day.
Thank you.