Hong Kong’s Cathay Pacific Airways and Dragonair registered a small year-over-year drop in cargo and mail tonnage for October 2013.
The sister airlines carried 137,300 tonnes of cargo and mail last month, a drop of 0.9 percent compared to October 2012, while capacity rose by 4 percent. For the year to date, tonnage fell by 1.8 percent compared to a 0.9 percent capacity increase.
“The expected airfreight peak was late in arriving but by the end of October we had begun to see a significant climb in the tonnages being shipped out of the key manufacturing centers in Mainland China and Asia, driven by consumer IT products,” said Mark Sutch, Cathay Pacific general manager of cargo sales and marketing.
Meanwhile, cargo throughput at Hong Kong International Airport (HKIA) in the first six months of fiscal 2013-2014 rose by 1.8 percent to 2.04 million tonnes, said Airport Authority Hong Kong in its latest interim profit report.
In the first six months ended September 30, 2013, the airport reported growth in total passenger and cargo revenue of 14.7 percent to HK$7.337 billion (US$946,487,000) and profit growth attributable to the equity shareholder of 17 percent to HK$3.215 billion.
The growth in half-year financial results was mainly attributed to “steady growth in air traffic, increasing passenger spending and stringent control over operating expenses,” as well as significant year-on-year growth in retail licenses and advertising revenue, said Stanley Hui Hon-chung, AAHK chief executive officer.
Photo: Sandip Battacharya
