Cathay Pacific Airways together with sister airline Dragonair experienced in February a drop in cargo and mail tonnage alongside an increase in passenger numbers, according to Shipping Gazette.
The two airlines combined carried 101,295 tonnes of cargo and mail in February, a decrease of 2.4 per cent compared to the same month a year earlier. The cargo and mail load factor fell by 1.8 percentage points to 59.3 per cent.
Capacity, measured in available cargo/mail tonne kilometres, fell by 1.5 per cent while cargo and mail revenue tonne kilometres flown were down 4.4 per cent. In the first two months of the year, tonnage dropped by 1.8 per cent against a capacity increase of 3.9 per cent.
Cathay Pacific general manager cargo sales & marketing Mark Sutch said, "Demand in the key Hong Kong and Mainland China markets plummeted following the beginning of Chinese New Year and the pick-up after the holiday was slow.
"However, by the middle of the month we began to see an increase in demand on the North America and Europe lanes and also for intra-Asia traffic, and by the end of February we were operating close to a full schedule.
"The Americas will remain a key focus for our cargo business and March sees two new destinations added to our freighter network - Mexico City and Columbus, Ohio."
With regards to passenger traffic, the two airlines carried a total of 2,381,020 passengers in February, an increase of 1.8 per cent compared to the same month last year.
The passenger load factor rose by 1.1 percentage points to 81.9 per cent, while capacity, measured in available seat kilometres (ASKs), increased by three per cent.
In the first two months of the year, the passenger volume rose by 5.5 per cent compared to a 3.2 per cent increase in capacity, a company statement said.
Cathay Pacific general manager revenue management James Tong said, "January's healthy demand continued into February and it was encouraging to see passenger numbers growing over 2013, despite the Chinese New Year peak for leisure travel falling in February last year.
"Demand on long-haul routes held up particularly well and within the region we again saw robust traffic to both Japan and Korea."
-
Company DirectoryFreight RateExport RateAgency PartnershipCargo Leads