Cathay Pacific Airways has seen a fall in cargo and mail tonnage in May, while it says yields remain under “intense pressure”.

The carrier and its low-cost arm Dragonair combined, carried 145,102 tonnes of cargo and mail in the month, which was a decrease of 1.3 per cent compared to the same month last year.

The cargo and mail load factor rose by 0.1 percentage points to 62.2 per cent. Capacity, measured in available cargo/mail tonne kilometres, fell by 4.8 per cent while cargo and mail revenue tonne kilometres (RTKs) fell by 4.6%. In the first five months of 2016, the tonnage carried fell by 1.7 per cent against a 0.3 per cent increase in capacity and a 3.7% drop in RTKs.

Cathay Pacific general manager for cargo sales and marketing, Mark Sutch explains: “May saw a further stabilisation in the tonnage being shipped out of some of our key markets, in particular Mainland China, Northeast Asia and the Southwest Pacific.

“As per the previous number of months, demand into India remained robust and we have increased capacity into the region to cater for this accordingly. The freightage yield, however, has continued to remain under intense pressure in what continues to be a challenging and capacity rich air cargo environment.”