Cathay volume rises for 4th straight month

   Cathay Pacific and sister airline Dragonair saw their air freight volume increase 3.4 percent year-on-year in December to 146,897 tons.
   The airlines’ combined load factor fell by 0.4 percentage points to 67.4 percent, while capacity, measured in available cargo/mail ton kilometers, rose by 1 percent.
   For the whole of 2012, tonnage declined by 5.3 percent while capacity dropped by 3.1 percent.
   “December was the fourth month in a row that we saw year-on-year growth in tonnage,” said Cathay Pacific General Manager Cargo Sales and Marketing James Woodrow, in a statement. “The cargo market had been in the doldrums since April 2011, so it was good to see the year ending on a stronger note. However, the cargo and mail tonnage carried in 2012 was still some way behind the 2010 total.”
   “We operated close to a full freighter schedule in December and added one more new destination to our freighter network, Colombo in Sri Lanka. As expected, demand tailed away significantly following the pre-Christmas rush,” he added.