Hong Kong's Cathay Pacific Airways on Friday lowered its expectations for full-year profit due to "incredibly challenging" conditions in its home market racked by anti-government protests that it expected to persist for the rest of 2019.

The airline reported a 7.1% drop in passenger numbers for the month of September as travellers avoided Hong Kong due to widespread and sometimes violent protests, and said its second-half financial results were likely to be below the first half.

Cathay in August reported a HK$1.347 billion ($171.75 million) first-half profit. At that time, it said second-half profit was likely to be higher than the first-half, as is typically the case for the airline, based on seasonality.

The consensus estimate before Friday's update was for the airline to report a full-year profit of HK$3.2 billion, according to 11 analysts polled by Refinitiv.

"We continue to see a significant shortfall in inbound bookings for the remainder of 2019 as compared to the same snapshot last year," Cathay Chief Customer and Commercial Officer Ronald Lam said in a statement on Friday.

Inbound traffic to Hong Kong was down 38% in September, unchanged from August, with demand from the mainland Chinese market hit especially hard, the airline said.

The 7.1% fall in passenger numbers in September was better than the 11.3% drop in August, but Cathay said an increasing reliance on transit passengers had affected its yields — a measure of the average fare paid per kilometer per passenger.

Cathay last month said it would cut capacity for the upcoming winter season.

($1 = 7.8427 Hong Kong dollars)