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Cathay, Dragonair cargo volume better than expected, but yields poor

HONG KONG's Cathay Pacific Airways and Dragonair carried 147,643 tonnes of cargo and mail in April, an increase of 2.1 per cent year on year.

The cargo and mail load factor rose by 0.9 percentage points to 63.5 per cent. Capacity, measured in available cargo/mail tonne kilometres, fell by 0.8 per cent while cargo and mail revenue tonne kilometres (RTKs) rose by 0.6 per cent.

In the first four months of 2016, the tonnage carried fell 1.8 per cent against a 1.7 per cent increase in capacity and a 3.4 per cent drop in RTKs.

"April saw a better-than-expected performance for our cargo business, at least in terms of tonnage," said Cathay cargo chief Mark Sutch.

"We managed capacity astutely and were able to capture shipments out of key markets, including mainland China and India, which led to a small improvement in load factor.

India remains a focus for our cargo business at the moment and we operated a number of additional services to and from the country in April in response to strong demand. The big issue at the moment is yield, which remains under intense pressure due to the overall softness of the markets and the big increase in competitor capacity," said Mr Sutch.

The two Hong Kong airlines carried a total of 2,909,534 passengers last month ?an decrease of 0.1 per cent year on year.

The passenger load factor fell 2.3 percentage points to 84.9 per cent while capacity, measured in available seat kilometres (ASKs), grew by 2.4 per cent. In the first four months of 2016, the number of passengers carried rose by 3.8 per cent compared to a 5.5 per cent increase in capacity.

Said passenger chief Patricia Hwang: "We saw a general weakening in passenger demand last month across most of the markets we serve. April figures received a boost from Easter returning traffic and the beginning of travel for the Labour Day holidays in China, but overall we are not seeing the high volumes we saw last year."