Perishables lift Cathay Pacific cargo volumes in January

Perishables shipments helped to raise air cargo volumes at Cathay Pacific in January year on year.

The airline carried 114,790 tonnes of cargo in January, an increase of 20.7% compared with January 2023 when capacity was still in recovery mode due to pandemic restrictions.

The month’s cargo revenue tonne kilometres (RFTKs) increased 11.4% year on year.

Chief customer and commercial officer Lavinia Lau said: “Demand for air cargo traditionally softens in January after the year-end peak period and our tonnage was down 11% compared with December 2023.

“However, when compared with January 2023, tonnage was up by 21%. Demand started to improve from the second week of January and we observed an increase in tonnage across our entire network. Perishable shipments were the bright spot especially from the Southwest Pacific to Asia.”

The cargo load factor decreased by 3.6 percentage points to 58.6%, while available cargo tonne kilometres (AFTKs) increased by 18.3% year on year, although increased capacity isn’t a concern for the airline due to the slow return of belly capacity in its fleet due to government pandemic restrictions in Hong Kong.

Lau noted that demand had started to ease now.

“In terms of cargo, the strong demand continued through to the start of the Lunar New Year holiday, but has now begun to ease.”

Cathay Pacific handled 1.4m tonnes of cargo during 2023, which is a 19.6% improvement on 2022 when Covid-related lockdowns resulted in freighter and passenger flights being cancelled due to crew restrictions. Demand still lagged behind 2019 levels though.

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