Cathay Pacific Airways carried 160,120 tonnes of cargo and mail in November, a three per cent fall compared to the same month last year – as overall demand fell short of expectations.
The cargo and mail load factor fell by 1.4 percentage points to 67 per cent, and capacity, measured in available cargo/mail tonne kilometres, dropped by 1.2 per cent while cargo and mail revenue tonne kilometres (RTKs) flown fell by 3.2 per cent.
In the year to the end of November, tonnage rose by 4.6 per cent against a capacity increase of 5.7 per cent and a 5.7% per cent in RTKs.
The two airlines have carried a total of 1.6 million tonnes of cargo in the first 11 months of 2015, a 4.6 per cent rise on same period in 2014. Capacity this year has reached 15 million available cargo/mail tonne kilometres and the load factor is 63.9 percentage points.
The figures also include Dragonair, a subsidiary of Cathay Pacific.
Cathay Pacific general manager cargo for sales and marketing, Mark Sutch says: “We entered the traditional peak period for airfreight in November, but overall demand fell short of our original expectations. We saw a decline in the tonnage carried compared to the same month last year, while yield fell short of expected peak-season levels due to an excess of capacity in the market.
“On the positive side, we saw good demand on transpacific routes, which remains our key area of strength, and also into and out of India. And our cargo terminal in Hong Kong recorded its highest monthly throughput since commencing operations.”
