Hong Kong International Airport (HKIA) reported a 1.9 percent growth in cargo volume to 341,000 tonnes in July 2013 compared to the same month last year.
Growth in July cargo throughput was mainly driven by a 5 percent year-on-year growth in exports.
During the month, cargo throughput to and from North America outperformed other key regions.
Over the first seven months of 2013, cargo volume grew by 2 percent to 2.3 million tonnes. On a rolling 12-month basis, HKIA handled 4.1 million tonnes of cargo, representing a year-on-year growth of 3.5 percent.
Meanwhile, Cathay Pacific Airways’s two airlines carried 122,920 tonnes of cargo and mail last month, a decline of 1.9 percent compared to the same month in 2012.
Combined Cathay Pacific and Dragonair cargo and mail load factor fell by 4.4 percentage points to 60.3 percent. Capacity, measured in available cargo and mail tonne kilometers, rose by 6.6 percent, while cargo and mail revenue tonne kilometers were down by 0.7 percent.
For the year to date, tonnage for the Hong Kong-based airlines has fallen by 1.8 percent to 863,472 tonnes compared to a 0.6 percent capacity decline.
“Demand was soft out of many of the major airfreight markets last month and once again we saw tonnage and load factor dropping compared to 2012, when business was already weak,” said Mark Sutch, Cathay Pacific general manager of cargo sales and marketing.
“The bright spots in our network were the transpacific lanes and demand on intra-Asia routes, particular out of Hanoi and Dhaka,” he added. “Europe and Japan remain two of the weaker markets at the moment.”
Photo: Sandip Bhattacharya
