Cathay volume down 8.4% in April

Cathay volume down 8.4% in April    Cathay Pacific Airways said it and sister airline Dragonair saw air freight volume drop 8.4 percent in April.
   The airlines carried 139,944 tons of cargo during the month, while their air freight load factor was down 11 percent to 68.3 percent. Capacity increased 13.4 percent. For the year, tonnage has dropped 0.3 percent, while capacity has increased 19.4 percent.
   'Our key Hong Kong home market remained soft throughout April while demand out of the major manufacturing areas of China weakened further, particularly to Europe,' said James Woodrow, Cathay Pacific general manager of cargo sales and marketing. 'However, once again the outbound weakness was offset to some extent by fairly robust demand into Asia. We reduced our freighter services on longhaul trunk routes in line with demand last month and will do the same in May as the markets stay quiet.'