Cathay suffers another air cargo drop

Cathay suffers another air cargo drop Cathay Pacific said Thursday it and sister airline Dragonair saw January air cargo volume drop 26 percent to 101,154 tons, compared to the same month in 2008.
   Capacity in the month fell 15.9 percent, while the load factor dropped 4.5 percent to 59.1 percent. The airline called it “another substantial fall in cargo and main tonnage.”
   “The slump in the global air freight market continued in January, resulting in a big drop in our cargo and mail tonnage, while our load factor for the month fell below 60 percent despite a substantial cut in capacity,” said Titus Diu, Cathay’s general manager, cargo sales and marketing. “Output from the Pearl and Yangtze river deltas continued to fall and there was no pre-Chinese New Year rush this year to spur the market in Hong Kong. Despite the downturn we are doing what we can to find new revenue streams, and a recently launched service to Jakarta and Ho Chi Minh City has made a positive contribution so far.”