Cargo and mail tonnage showed a year-over-year decline for Cathay Pacific Airways and Dragonair in December 2013, despite more available capacity.
The two airlines carried 139,608 tonnes of cargo and mail, a drop of 5 percent year over year. The cargo and mail load factor fell by 4.1 percentage points to 63.3 percent.
Capacity, measured in available cargo/mail tonne kilometers, increased by 1.8 percent, while cargo and mail revenue tonne kilometers flown were down by 4.4 percent. The total tonnage carried in 2013 fell by 1.5 percent compared to the previous year, while capacity was up by 1.7 percent.
Cathay Pacific and Dragonair carried 3.3 percent more passengers compared to December 2012.
“After seeing strong demand throughout November, the seasonal airfreight peak began to fizzle out in mid-December,” said Mark Sutch, Cathay Pacific general manager cargo sales and marketing. “There were some late charter requests to capture last-minute pre-Christmas demand on the transpacific lanes, but by the third week in the month, we had reduced our freighter schedule to pre-peak levels. We took delivery of three more Boeing 747-8F freighters in December as part of our ongoing drive to improve the efficiency of our operation, particularly on the key transpacific routes.”