Cathay Pacific and Dragonair have seen growth of 2.8 per cent in September to 151,358 tonnes, and is expecting seasonal growth in October and November, following three months of slow growth.
The increase in September followed growth of less than one per cent in June, July and August. Both June and July saw year-on-year (YOY) 0.5 per cent while August was up by 0.8 per cent. The year had started strongly with double digit YOY 12.5 per cent in January to 147,275 tonnes before surging by 28.8 per cent in February to 130,467 tonnes. So far this year volumes are up by 5.6 per cent to 1.3 million tonnes.
Cathay Pacific general manager for cargo sales and marketing, Mark Sutch says: “Our business received a boost from the movement of new consumer IT products out of the key manufacturing areas of Western China, but overall the momentum in the markets remained flat.”
As for the rest of the year, Sutch says: “We still expect to see a traditional winter peak and will be operating a full freighter schedule from mid-October through November.”
The load factor in September increased by 0.2 percentage points to 62.4 per cent, the first YOY increase since March. July had seen the largest YOY fall of 2015, down 2.9 percentage points to 61.8 per cent. June was the next largest fall, down 2.2 percentage points to 62.7 per cent, followed by August, down 1.9 percentage points to 60.6 per cent. So far this year, the load factor has remained at 63.2 per cent, the same as it was by September 2014.
