Cathay Pacific Airways saw a marginal decrease in the volume of cargo and mail it uplifted in March – but it saw better demand in the month.

Cathay Pacific and Dragonair combined carried 157,006 tonnes of cargo and mail in March, a drop of 0.4 per cent compared to the same month last year. The cargo and mail load factor fell by 5.4 percentage points to 63 per cent.

Capacity, measured in available cargo/mail tonne kilometres, increased by 4.1 per cent while cargo and mail revenue tonne kilometres (RTKs) fell by 4.1 per cent. In the first quarter of the year, the tonnage carried fell by 3.1 per cent against a 2.6 per cent increase in capacity and a 4.8 per cent drop in RTKs.

Cathay Pacific general manager for cargo sales and marketing, Mark Sutch says: “Following a generally weak February, we saw some improvement in airfreight demand in March. This was helped by the shipment of new consumer IT products out of the major manufacturing cities of Western China.

“There was a pick-up in traffic on key transpacific routes, and we mounted a number of additional flights into India in response to continued robust demand. Overall, however, the air cargo markets remain soft and yield remains under pressure in what is a highly competitive environment.”