Despite good traffic within Asia-Pacific, sister carriers Cathay Pacific Airways and Dragonair reported a significant drop in their combined global cargo and mail tonnage for May 2012.
The Hong Kong-based airlines carried 123,403 tonnes of cargo and mail last month, a drop of 10.6 percent compared to May 2011, Cathay Pacific said in a statement. Cargo and mail load factor was down by 5.9 percentage points to 62.3 percent.
Capacity, measured in available cargo and mail tonne kilometers, decreased by 7.3 percent, while cargo and mail tonne kilometers flown dropped by 15.3 percent in May this year against the same period last year.
For year-to-date, tonnage declined by 10.7 percent against a capacity drop of 4.1 percent compared to the same period in 2011.
“Demand once again remained soft out of the key Hong Kong and Mainland China markets in May. Demand was down on long-haul routes, particularly to Europe, though traffic within the Asia Pacific region held up well,” said James Woodrow, Cathay Pacific general manager for cargo sales and marketing.
To spur demand, Woodrow said market development is a prime activity. “In May we launched a new freighter service to Hyderabad in India following on from the launch of services to Zhengzhou in Central China in late March.”
Photo: Alaskan Dude
