Cathay Pacific said on Friday passenger numbers of Hong Kong's flagship carrier and its subsidiary, HK Express, hit 3.2 million in July, a new monthly high for the year as the summer holidays boosted demand.

Figures released by the group showed Cathay carried almost 2.49 million passengers last month, a 24 percent increase from a year ago.

That took the total number of passengers for the first seven months of the year to more than 16.1 million, up 27 percent year on year.

Meanwhile, passenger volume at its budget airline subsidiary HK Express reached 686,000 in July, up nearly 22 percent year on year and taking the seven-month tally to about 4.48 million.

Lavinia Lau, the group's chief customer and commercial officer, noted that July marked the start of the traditional summer peak season.

"The robust demand in July was primarily driven by long-haul traffic to and from Hong Kong in the first half of the month, particularly among students and those visiting friends and relatives, followed by leisure traffic to regional destinations such as South Korea and Southeast Asia in the second half of July," Lau said.

"Looking further ahead, we expect student traffic to provide a travel boost in September ahead of the new school year, while the National Day and Mid-Autumn Festival holiday periods are expected to stimulate leisure travel demand from Hong Kong and the Chinese mainland in October."

Cathay also reported that its cargo volume grew by 11 percent year on year to about 140,000 tonnes in July, which "reflects the movement of air cargo ahead of the tariff timelines", Lau said.

That raised overall cargo volume for the first seven months of the year to 940,000 tonnes, also up 11 percent from a year ago.