October recovery for Cathay; will it last?
Cathay Pacific and sister airline Dragonair are finally nearing equilibrium in terms of year-on-year cargo volume.
The two airlines carried a combined 143,290 tons of cargo in October, down 0.8 percent on October 2008, while the cargo load factor rose by 10.8 percentage points to 76.7 percent. Capacity for the month was 15.6 percent down from October 2008.
For the year to date, tonnage has fallen 11.1 percent against a capacity reduction of 14 percent.
'October was the best month of the year so far for our cargo business, with strong demand out of the key Hong Kong and Shanghai markets leading to high load factors, particularly to North America and Europe, and a welcome increase in yield,' said Titus Diu, Cathay Pacific general manager of cargo sales and marketing. 'We expect demand to remain strong through to mid-December, though it is still too early to say whether we are seeing a sustained recovery.'
