Cathay Pacific, Dragonair see cargo decline in December

   Cathay Pacific Airways’ and Dragonair’s traffic figures for December show a year-over-year decline in cargo, despite more capacity being available, Cathay Pacific announced Thursday.
   The airlines reported that they carried 139,608 tons of cargo and mail in December, a decrease of 5 percent compared to December 2012. Capacity, measured in available cargo/mail ton kilometers, increased by 1.8 percent, while cargo and mail revenue tonne kilometers flown were down 4.4 percent.
   Cathay also reported that the total tonnage carried in 2013 dropped by 1.5 percent compared to 2012, while capacity was up by 1.7 percent.
   “After seeing strong demand throughout November, the seasonal airfreight peak began to fizzle out in mid-December. There were some late charter requests to capture last- minute pre-Christmas demand on the transpacific lanes, but by the third week in the month, we had reduced our freighter schedule to pre-peak levels,” Mark Sutch, Cathay’s general manager of cargo sales and marketing, said in a statement. “We took delivery of three more Boeing 747-8F freighters in December as part of our ongoing drive to improve the efficiency of our operation, particularly on the key transpacific routes.”