Asian Cargo Monthly: Asian airlines enjoy peak boost

October was another strong month for Asian airline’s cargo divisions as the peak season got underway.
The monthly cargo figures released by seven major airlines based in Asia show that all the carriers recorded demand improvements in October. The improvement in demand reflects the performance of US and European carriers.
The region’s largest cargo carrier, Cathay Pacific, registered a 3.2% improvement on a year earlier with demand reaching 984m cargo and mail revenue tonne km, despite tough weather conditions and maintenance operations affecting performance.
The percentage growth is one of the strongest registered by Cathay so far this year, but lags behind the improvements recorded in June, July and September.
For the year-to-date, cargo demand is up 0.4% on a year ago.
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Cargo capacity for the month increased by the lower amount of 0.6% and as a result the airline’s load factor reached 68.1% compared with 66.5% last year, representing its highest level for the month since Air Cargo News records began in 2011.
Cathay Pacific general manager cargo sales & marketing Mark Sutch said: “Overall cargo demand in October was fairly strong and tonnage continued to grow.
“We had some negative impact on our forecasts during the month from typhoon disruptions and unscheduled aircraft maintenance but overall exports from Europe, Asia and Mainland China were robust.
“The team continues to work hard to push up the yield, and the rates are getting back to peak season levels.”
The largest percentage improvement for the month came from fast-growing China Southern, which registered growth of 13% year on year to 555m revenue tonne km.
The improvement is in line with its performance over the first 10 months of the year, where it registered an increase of 9.3% year on year, but it is the first double-digit growth rate since June.
Cargo load factor for the month reached 54% compared with 50% in October last year.
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Other notable improvements in demand came from Air China, China Airlines and Eva Air.
Air China registered a 9.4% year-on-year increase in traffic to 609m revenue freight tonne km, which is its biggest percentage increase of the year and also its busiest October since Air Cargo News records began. For the year-to-date, Air China is 4.9% up on last year.
China Airline’s 9.2% year-on-year improvement to 485m freight revenue tonne kms is its best monthly growth rate since February 2015 and beats the increase for the first ten months of 3.2% on a year earlier.
Meanwhile, Eva Air continued its turnaround as it registered an 8.7% year-on-year improvement in demand to 336m freight tonne km, compared with a year-to-date decline of 4.2%.
China Eastern registered a 5.1% increase in demand for October to 823m revenue freight tonne km, compared with a 0.5% decline for the year-to-date and Singapore Airlines registered growth of 7.7% to 627m cargo tonne km, against a 5.8% year-on-year improvement over the first ten months.
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