Cathay Pacific Airways and Cathay Dragon carried 163,473 tonnes of cargo and mail in April between them – an increase of 10.7 per cent on the same month in 2016 with e-commerce and key Asian markets driving the surge.
In April, the cargo and mail load factor rose by 2.2 percentage points to 65.7 per cent and capacity – measured in available cargo/mail tonne kilometres, was up by 2.6 per cent while cargo and mail revenue tonne kilometres (RTKs) increased by 6.2 per cent.
In the first four months of 2017, tonnage rose by 11.2 per cent to 633,468 tonnes, against a 1.9 per cent increase in capacity and an 8.6 per cent rise in RTKs – while the load factor was up four percentage points to 65.7 per cent.
Cathay Pacific general manager of cargo sales and marketing, Mark Sutch says: “Our cargo business continued to show encouraging year-on-year tonnage growth. Demand from Hong Kong and key Asian markets to North America, Europe and India remained buoyant.
“Intra-Asia movement was boosted by strong e-commerce traffic as well as capacity reduction in the market. Yield has continued its upward trend.”
“We recently announced an agreement with Atlas Air Worldwide to wet-lease two Boeing 747-8 Freighters, which will supplement capacity on our existing network. This will enable us to provide our customers with increased options and services from June, when most market indicators are suggesting a solid year for air cargo,” Sutch adds.
