February 2008 preliminary traffic results released by the Association of Asia Pacific Airlines (AAPA) indicate that the average cargo load factor rose 1 percentage point to 66.1 per cent as cargo capacity grew by just 0.8 per cent. International freight traffic, expressed in freight tonne kilometres (FTKs), grew by 2.4 per cent in February. The AAPA reported an increase of 4.8 per cent in the number of internationalpassengers carried to 11.6 million.
Passenger traffic in revenue passenger kilometres (RPK) terms grew by 5.9 per cent on capacity growth of 5.7 per cent, leading to a marginal 0.1 percentage point improvement in passenger load factor to 76.3 per cent.
Commenting on the results, Andrew Herdman, AAPA’s director general said: “The traffic figures for January and February indicate a solid start to the year, with AAPA international passenger traffic for the first two months growing by 5.1 per cent in RPK terms. In line with recent trends, international air cargo traffic recorded more modest growth, up 3.5 per cent in FTK terms.”