Combined Cathay Pacific and Cathay Dragon traffic figures for November 2017 released today show a 12 per cent cargo growth over November 2016.
The two airlines carried 187,545 tonnes of cargo and mail last month. Cargo and mail load factor rose by 3.5 percentage points to 71.6 per cent. Capacity, measured in available cargo/mail tonne kilometres, was up by 5.9 per cent while cargo and mail revenue tonne kilometres (RTKs) increased by 11.2 per cent. In the first eleven months of 2017, the tonnage rose by 11 per cent against a 3.4 per cent in capacity and an 8.9 per cents in RTKs.
“In cargo, our high year-on-year tonnage growth reflects the overall strength in the world’s air cargo markets,” Cathay Pacific director commercial and cargo Ronald Lam. “E-commerce related movements were boosted by events such as Chinese Singles’ Day, which helped to even out the traditional dip in demand following the Thanksgiving holiday, and we saw high load factors and improving yields.
“We broke our weekly tonnage uplift record in the week starting 26 November, while a number of key markets across our network also established new revenue records during the month. The outlook remains positive and is expected to carry through until Christmas.”