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Houston wins Cathay with new air cargo centre, flight service

Mar 26, 2009 Logistics

HONG KONG's Cathay Pacific Airways has launched a new all-cargo service to Bush Intercontinental Airport in Houston, Texas.

The service comes despite the global slump in cargo demand which the International Air Transport Association said lead to a 23.2 per cent decline in air freight volume in January. The air freight segment accounts for 30 per cent of Cathay Pacific's revenue.

Said Cathay cargo chief Rupert Hogg: Our cargo business is facing a big challenge due to the worldwide economic downturn, making it all the more important to seek out new markets and find ways to develop our business over the long term.

According to a report by The Houston Chronicle, the airline wants to fit into its system a piece of the airport's growing cargo business, which has increased by 14 per cent in the past five years. The Houston service is operated three times a week using Cathay's new Boeing 747-400 extended-range freighters.

Our network flow is very important to us, said Cathay vice president Scott Mowrer. By adding Houston, it completes one more piece of the puzzle for us.

Cathay will also face stiff competition from Houston-based Continental Airlines which runs cargo from Houston to Asia and Latin America.

The report noted that despite the slowdown, China and Latin America are still solid cargo markets, however, aviation consultant Mike Boyd believes Cathay Pacific isn't relying just on that.

I would suspect they have some business lined up or they wouldn't be doing this,Mr Boyd said.

For one thing, the Houston Airport System is said to have been working for years to bring Cathay onboard. Airport officials began stepping up their marketing campaign about eight years ago when they committed to building modern cargo facilities at Intercontinental, according to Rick Vacar, chief of the system.

A 600,000-square-foot cargo facility was developed with space to handle 20 wide-body aircraft. Of all projects taken on here in the last 10 years, probably building that new cargo area was riskiest, Mr Vacar said. But as it turned out, it was pretty obvious we could do some serious marketing.

Cathay expects to transport a variety of freight to and from Houston, but is specifically looking to tap into the oil and gas equipment, machinery and hi-tech sectors, as well as sensitive pharmaceutical products.

The carrier already serves a string of cities in North America, including New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Chicago, Atlanta, Toronto, Vancouver, and this month started service to Miami.

Source: Transportweekly

 


 

 
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