Big jump for Cathay and Dragonair in February

Cathay Pacific and Dragonair’s airfreight volumes jumped 28.8 per cent in February compared with the same month in 2014.
Between them, the two airlines carried 130,467 tonnes of cargo and mail in February.
Cathay Pacific’s general manager cargo sales and marketing, Mark Sutch, said: “The high-year-on-year tonnage growth reflects the overall improvement in the world’s air cargo markets compared to early 2014, along with the extra capacity added by Cathay Pacific in response to the increase in demand.
“February’s figures were spurred by a surge in exports prior to Mainland factories shutting down for the Chinese New Year holidays. Demand fell away over the holiday period, as expected, but saw quite a rapid pick-up, particularly on the North American lanes.”
The cargo and mail load factor rose by 6.2 percentage points to 65.5 per cent in February. Capacity, in available cargo/mail tonne kilometres, rose by 25.6 per cent while cargo and mail revenue tonne kilometres (RTKs) flown climbed by 38.7 per cent.
In the first two months of the year, tonnage rose by 19.6 per cent against a capacity increase of 16.0 per cent and a 24.5 per cent rise in RTKs.