Hong Kong sister airlines Cathay Pacific and Cathay Dragon showed an increase in the number of passengers carried in June 2019, but cargo and mail uplifted declined compared to the same month in 2018 due to weakening market sentiment, according to combined traffic figures released by the Cathay Pacific group.
The two carriers carried a total of 3.1 million passengers last month—an increase of 6.0% compared to June 2018. The passenger load factor increased 1.4 percentage points to 86.7%, while capacity increased by 7.3%.
In the first six months of 2019, the number of passengers carried grew by 4.4% while capacity increased by 6.7%, said Cathay Pacific in a release.
The two airlines carried 163,977 tonnes of cargo and mail last month, a drop of 9.1% compared to the same month last year. The cargo and mail load factor fell by 7.8 percentage points to 62.8%. Capacity, measured in available freight tonne kilometers, was up by 1.5% while cargo and mail revenue freight tonne kilometers (RFTKs) dropped by 9.7%.
In the first six months of 2019, the tonnage fell by 5.7% against a 1.1% increase in capacity and a 6.1% decrease in RFTKs.
“Passenger demand remained robust for both business and leisure travel in June, with first and business class load factor reaching its highest level over a decade,” Cathay Pacific director of commercial and cargo Ronald Lam said.
“However, intense market competition continued to exert pressure on yield. Long-haul regions such as North America and Europe performed behind expectations, particularly on the yield front. Such pressure on yield is expected to continue in the coming months.”
He added that on the cargo side, “weakening market sentiment has been impacting our tonnage uplift and yield.”
Except for the Americas, Northeast Asia and mainland China, which had a marginal increase in uplift compared to May, overall volume has seen decline against the previous month and year, with only a short-lived recovery from Asia towards the latter half of June, he continued.
Looking ahead for the cargo business, Lam said: “The outlook for the coming months has not seen signs of volume rebound. We shall further our efforts to maintain a healthy market share by working closely with our forwarders and shippers, and further rationalise our freighter capacity to better match demand.”
Photo courtesy of Cathay Pacific
