Cathay Pacific Cargo reports busiest month since Covid outbreak

Cathay Pacific Cargo in September reported its busiest month since the start of the Covid-19 pandemic.

The cargo carrier saw volumes reach 130,997 tonnes in September, an improvement of 19.7% compared with last year.

The increase comes on the back of robust demand and the re-introduction of capacity, which is up by 16.4% in available cargo tonne km terms against September last year.

Chief customer and commercial officer Ronald Lam said: “Cargo demand continued to grow as we stepped into the traditional cargo peak season. To meet this demand, we operated our freighter fleet at peak capacity throughout September, further supplemented with additional cargo-only passenger flight operations, which surged 20% compared to August.

“Overall, we managed to operate approximately 70% of our pre-pandemic cargo capacity when compared to September 2019.

“Strong performances were recorded across our network, with our home market Hong Kong and a number of Southeast Asian countries achieving record revenues in September.

“Our time-sensitive Priority LIFT product, as well as our charter and ‘preighter’ solutions, have also seen keen interest from customers.”

The carrier group’s cargo load factor also improved in September compared with last year, reaching 79.7% – a 3.8 percentage point improvement on last year.

Looking ahead, Lam said: “Demand continues to be robust driven by the movement of new consumer products and the urgent need for inventory replenishment due to supply chains remaining constrained.

“To meet these challenges, our worldwide teams have been working diligently to provide more capacity and expand our network for our customers whilst continuing to meet the ongoing operational challenges posed by the Covid-19 pandemic.”