Cathay cargo volume up 8.9% in January

Cathay cargo volume up 8.9% in January    Cathay Pacific and sister airline Dragonair saw air freight volume rise 8.9 percent in January, though the airlines' cargo load factors were hit by increased capacity.
   Cathay and Dragonair carried 144,402 tons of cargo during the month, while its load factor declined 7.1 percent to 67.8 percent, mostly due to a 25.5 percent increase in capacity.
   'Freight volumes fell away a little following the 2010 year-end peak but, overall, traffic still held up quite well throughout the first month of 2011,' said James Woodrow, Cathay Pacific general manager of cargo sales and marketing. 'Demand out of the key Hong Kong and mainland China markets was a little softer than anticipated but this freed up space to enable us to carry more shipments from other destinations in the network. The expected pre-Chinese New Year rush did not materialize to the extent seen in previous years.'
   Meanwhile, Cathay also said Tuesday it is increasing the frequency of flights between its Hong Kong hub and Milan, Paris, Jakarta, Surabaya and Penang.
   From March 27, Cathay will operates twice daily to Paris, adding three flights to the 11 weekly services currently. The additional flights will operate via Amsterdam.
   On the same date, it will add three flights weekly to Jakarta (the airline didn't specify how many it already operates) and one to Surabaya to make it a daily service. It will also operate three direct flights from Hong Kong to Penang weekly (Cathay has served Penang via Kuala Lumpur).
   From July 1, Milan will be served daily instead of four times a week as it is at present.