Cathay Pacific has significantly reduced its losses for the first half of the year while the cargo sector experienced strong growth.

Revenue for Cathay Pacific Group was up 15.7 per cent to HK$53 billion ($6.7 billion) while losses attributable to shareholders being reduced from HK$2 billion in the first half of 2017 to HK$263 million this year.

For the cargo division, volumes exceeded one million tonnes compared to 966,000 tonnes the previous year, and cargo and mail yield was up 16.3 per cent to HK$1.93.

Cargo revenue increased 23.4 per cent to HK$12.9 billion and tonnage grew faster than capacity and yield strengthened, which the airline says reflects increasing demand for specialist cargo shipments and movement of higher value goods to and from Asia.

The airline says on cargo services, shipments from Hong Kong and Mainland China were stable and transhipments from the Indian subcontinent, Europe, Japan and Southeast Asia were strong.

E-commerce shipments from Asia remained strong whilst exports of machinery and food from Europe and the Americas to Asia continued to grow, helping to balance the trade flow.

Customers received more product options for transporting high-value, temperature-sensitive pharmaceutical products through rental agreements with va-Q-tec and Sonoco for their containers, adding to solutions with Envirotainer, DoKaSch and CSafe.

Cathay Pacific added freighter services to India by increasing the six times a week service to Chennai to daily, and adding a third flight to Mumbai in June 2018.

The airline also says additional capacity will be added to key routes in America during the second half of 2018 to cope with seasonal demand.