Cathay Pacific Airways combined Cathay Pacific and Dragonair traffic figures for April 2012 show another drop in cargo and mail tonnage against passenger numbers growing year-onyear. Cathay Pacific and Dragonair carried 124,531 tonnes of cargo and mail in
April, a drop of 11 per cent compared to April 2011. The cargo and mail load factor was down by five percentage points to 63.3 per cent.

Capacity, measured in available cargo/mail tonne kilometres, decreased by 6.8 per cent, while cargo and mail tonne kilometres flown dropped by 13.7 per cent. For the first four months, tonnage has declined by 10.7 per cent against a capacity drop of 3.3 per cent.

Cathay Pacific general manager cargo sales & marketing James Woodrow said: “After the temporary surge in business in March, driven by large shipments of hi-tech products from Mainland China,
demand softened again out of our key markets in April. The general air cargo market remains soft, especially to Europe, though intra-Asia traffic is holding up better, helped by a recent
expansion of the passenger network in the region.

“Looking forward, we will continue to manage capacity in line with
demand, particularly on long-haul flights to Europe and Transpacific. Fuel prices continue to be a major concern on these long-haul routes.” The two airlines carried a total of 2.5 million passengers in April – an increase of 11.7 per cent on the same month in 2011 – while the passenger load factor rose by 2.8 percentage points to 83.1 per cent.

Meanwhile, Cathay is ramping up in India. Along with the service to
Hyderabad – the first airline to offer an air cargo service linking the capital of Andhra Pradesh, with East and North Asia – the carrier will be adding a third weekly freighter flight to Bengaluru to meet the surging demand to and from India’s leading information technology hub. Both services started from 17 May.

The Hyderabad service has been prompted by pharma exports with
Cathay Pacific director cargo, Nick Rhodes noting that Hyderabad was one of the major hubs for the manufacturing of pharmaceuticals in India, accounting for around two-thirds of the country’s drug production. “So we expect a strong demand for our specialised Pharma LIFT products and services.

For Bengaluru, we have been seeing increasing demand since we launched our freighter service last August and we believe the time is right for an additional flight each week,” he said. The Hyderabad service will operate on a Hong Kong-Delhi-Bengaluru- Hyderabad-Hong Kong routing Thursdays and a Hong Kong-Chennai- Hyderabad-Hong Kong routing on Sundays. The third weekly flight to Bengaluru will operate via Mumbai on
Saturdays, in addition to the current flights every Monday and Thursday.

The launch of the new flights, according to Tom Wright, Cathay
Pacific’s general manager South Asia, Middle East & Africa will reinforce the carrier’s position as one of the biggest airfreight operators in India. The latest schedule enhancements mean that
Cathay Pacific will operate 19 cargo flights a week to five major cities: Delhi, Mumbai, Chennai, Bengaluru and Hyderabad.