Cathay, Dragonair cargo down 2% in March

Cathay, Dragonair cargo down 2% in March Cathay Pacific and its new wholly owned subsidiary Dragonair carried a combined 140,002 tons of freight in March, down 2 percent from the comparable amount in the same month last year.
   The Hong Kong-based airline’s monthly cargo load factor decreased by 3.9 percentage points to 67.6 percent. Capacity for the two carriers, measured in available cargo and mail ton kilometers, rose 4.2 percent.
   After the first three months of 2007, the airlines flew 372,560 tons of goods, down 1.2 percent. Cargo load factor for the quarter fell 2.8 percentage points to 64.6 percent.
   “Weak demand in the cargo market continued through March, and for the first quarter we saw a dip in our cargo load factor and tonnage carried,” said Ron Mathison, Cathay Pacific’s director and general manager cargo. “There was no significant pickup following the Chinese New Year holidays, and in March we saw a falloff in demand out of our key Hong Kong and Chinese Mainland markets as a result of more cargo moving by ocean instead of air.”