Cathay Pacific Airways and Dragonair logged combined cargo and mail tonnage growth for September 2012, the first time the sister airlines from Hong Kong did so this year.
The two carriers ferried 134,584 tonnes of cargo and mail last month, an increase of 2.4 percent compared to September 2011, said Cathay Pacific, Asia’s fourth leading carrier by market value, in an official statement.
The cargo and mail load factor was down by 2 percentage points to 62.8 percent. Capacity, measured in available cargo and mail tonne kilometers, decreased by 0.3 percent, while cargo and mail tonne kilometers flown dropped by 3.3 percent.
For the year to date, tonnage has declined by 8.3 percent against a capacity drop of 4.9 percent.
“Demand out of key markets began to pick up from mid-September onwards, helped by shipments of hi-tech consumer products out of mainland China and other manufacturing centers such as Vietnam. There was also a short pre-holiday rush in the buildup to the National Day ‘golden week’ in the mainland,” said James Woodrow, Cathay Pacific general manager for cargo sales and marketing.
Woodrow said that they plan to operate more scheduled services to Europe and the Americas from mid-October onwards, but that these would still fall short of the number of freighters operated in the same period in 2010.
“The market from Asia to Europe in particular remains weak and ultra price-competitive as supply continues to exceed demand despite the capacity cuts,” he explained.
Photo: Doug Letterman
