Payment network Affirm has announced a partnership with Hong Kong-based global airline Cathay Pacific where it will act as its exclusive US pay-over-time partner. Per the press release information, the collaboration seeks to make flights available through simple monthly or bi-weekly payments, with no hidden or late fees being applied.

Cathay Pacific – Affirm partnership context and details Connecting Hong Kong and North America for 40 years, Cathay Pacific provides nonstop passenger services to Hong Kong and more than 60 destinations worldwide, including 16 airports in 15 cities in the Chinese mainland, from four US cities - Boston, Los Angeles, New York (JFK), and San Francisco, with Chicago services set to resume in October. By selecting Affirm at checkout, approved Cathay Pacific customers can split the total cost of any flight into bi-weekly or monthly payments, for as low as 0% APR. What is more, customers are enabled with visibility over the total cost of their purchase and are never to pay more than the amount agreed to upfront.

Richard Jones, Cathay Pacific’s Vice President of Marketing & Sales, Americas said that the company is looking forward to partnering with Affirm and providing its customers with an additional payment option to purchase flights. Per their statement, Cathay Pacific’s travellers will now have the option to split their payment into easy instalments, which is thought of as an attractive option for those preferring to pay over time, at their own pace, with no late or hidden fees. The spokesperson further stated that as customers have been requesting more flexibility when talking about payment options, the partnership with Affirm helps deliver a simple and easy-to-use flexible payment option.

Adding on this, Wayne Pommen, Affirm’s Chief Revenue Officer stated that global airline traffic in May increased approximately 40% compared to 2022 and has returned to more than 95% of pre-pandemic levels. The company official advised that by integrating Affirm, Cathay Pacific is enabled to provide personalised monthly and by-weekly payment options side-by-side seamlessly, in a single checkout experience that helps deliver increased purchasing power to its customers. Based on the information detailed in the announcement, with this collaboration, Cathay Pacific joins more than 245,000 Affirm merchants, including Adidas, American Airlines, Gucci, SeatGeek, and Walmart, amongst others.

Providing Affirm at checkout is believed to help increase overall sales, average order value, conversion, and customer repurchase rates. Affirm past developments Within 2023, Affirm announced four other separate developments. In June, it made public two collaborations, namely with Amazon Pay and Worldpay from FIS.

The cooperation with Amazon sought to have its Adaptive Checkout solution added as a payment option for US-based merchants offering Amazon Pay, whereas the one with Worldpay from FIS focused on providing the latter’s customers with its pay-over-time solution. In April of the same year, Affirm announced an expansion of its partnership with Stripe for merchant revenue growth in Canada, and in January it made public its collaboration with US-based online travel agency KAYAK to provide travellers with spending power and payment flexibility when booking with KAYAK. .