Cathay December cargo off 23.9pc, down 1.6pc in '08

CATHAY Pacific and Dragonair carried a total of 115,232 tonnes of cargo and mail in December, down 23.9 per cent year on year, but only fell by 1.6 per cent throughout 2008, said a company statement.

There was no sign of any pre-Christmas rush in 2008 and weak demand globally led to tonnage falling faster than we could cut capacity, said Cathay cargo chief Titus Diu.

We saw a big decline in goods carried from the Pearl and Yangtze river deltas last month, causing a further slump in the Hong Kong market. We expect the market to remain weak in the first quarter of 2009 and we have revised our capacity to Europe and North America downwards, he said.

The cargo and mail load factor dropped by 5.7 percentage points to 62.9 per cent compared to a capacity rise of 0.7 per cent, said the company statement.

In December, the two airlines carried a total of 2,110,719 passengers - down 0.3 per cent on the same month in 2007 - while the load factor dipped by 1.8 percentage points to 79 per cent. This compares to a 4.7 per cent rise in passenger capacity, measured in available seat kilometres (ASKs), for the month. For 2008 as a whole, the number of passengers carried was 24,959,429 - a 7.3 per cent rise, compared to a capacity increase of 12.7 per cent, said the statement.

Source: Schednet