Cathay Pacific Joins Growing List of Airlines Hit by Data Breach

Hong Kong’s Cathay Pacific Airways Ltd. said it had joined a growing list of global airlines affected by a data breach at a major software provider.

Cathay said around 53,000 bookings were affected by unauthorized access to reservation data held by Amadeus IT Group between August 2023 and September 2026. Most affected records contained booking references, passenger names and flight details, though a smaller subset potentially included email and phone contacts and travel document information, it said in a statement Friday.

The incident is being investigated and isn’t impacting Cathay’s systems or operations.

The Amadeus breach has affected a number of major airlines. Japan Airlines Co. has said around 92,000 customer records were exposed in a cyberattack, while ANA Holdings Inc. said the information of up to 37,800 passengers was leaked. Korean Air Lines Co. and German carrier Condor have also said their data was affected.

It’s unclear if more airlines have been affected, but Amadeus’ software is used extensively by the global aviation industry. Deutsche Lufthansa AG, which entered a partnership with Amadeus this year, didn’t immediately reply to a request for comment.

Photograph: An aircraft operated by Cathay Pacific Airways on the tarmac at Hong Kong International Airport; photo credit: Paul Yeung/Bloomberg