Cathay Pacific Airways' unit, Dragonair, will reduce its Kota Kinabalu-Hong Kong flights from seven a week currently to four starting this May.

Cathay Pacific country manager for Malaysia and Brunei, Katherine Lo, said demand for the route fell, especially in the front-end business class and the company expected a further slowdown in the second half of the year.

"There is a lot of uncertainties at present ... But in future we will definitely look into increasing the flights (again) if there is more demand.

"We are committed to the market in this region," she said at the Dragonair annual agency dinner on March 27.

She said the airline was not considering any new destination now but would instead redeploy the capacity of some of the aircraft to other routes like the new service to Manila, which was introduced last December.