January continued the downward plunge for Cathay Pacific Airways and Dragonair whose combined traffic figures for the month indicated another hefty fallin cargo and mail tonnage.
The two airlines carried a total of 101,154 tonnes of cargo and mail last month, down 26 per cent on January 2008, while capacity, measured in available cargo/mail tonne kilometres, fell by 15.9 per cent. The cargo and mail load factor dropped by 4.5 percentage points to 59.1 per cent.
“The slump in the global air freight market continued in January, resulting in a big drop in our cargo and mail tonnage, while our load factor for the month fell below 60 per cent despite a substantial cut in capacity,” said Cathay Pacific general manager cargo sales and marketing Titus Diu.
He also noted that output from the Pearl and Yangtze River Deltas continued to fall and there was also no pre-Chinese New Year rush this year to spur the market in Hong Kong.
“Despite the downturn we are doing what we can to find new revenue streams, and a recently-launched service to Jakarta and Ho Chi Minh City has made a positive contribution so far,” he added.