Cathay Cargo Sees China Improvement

Combined Cathay Pacific and Dragonair traffic figures for October 2013 produced an increase in passengers carried and passenger capacity – but a small year-on-year decline in air cargo and mail tonnage.

The two airlines carried 137,300 tonnes in the month, a drop of 0.9 per cent in October 2012.

For the year to date, tonnage fell by some 1.8 per cent, despite a 0.9 per cent capacity increase during the period.

Mark Sutch, general manager of cargo sales and marketing for the carriers, states: “The expected air freight peak was late in arriving, but by the end of October, we had begun to see a significant climb in the tonnages being shipped out of the key manufacturing centres in mainland China and Asia, driven by consumer IT products.”

“We began to ramp up freighter capacity on the North American lanes and mounted a number of extra sectors and charters, but demand to and from Europe remained softer than hoped,” he adds.

Capacity was boosted by the addition of Cathay Cargo’s latest air freight destination, Guadalajara in the emerging air cargo market of Mexico.