Cathay Pacific Airways today released combined Cathay Pacific and Dragonair traffic figures for July 2015 continuing the trend of strong year-on-year growth in the number of passengers carried but only a marginal increase in the volume of cargo and mail uplifted.

The two airlines carried 147,545 tonnes of cargo and mail in July, an increase of 0.5 per cent compared to the same month last year. The cargo and mail load factor fell by 2.9 percentage points to 61.8 per cent.

Capacity, measured in available cargo/mail tonne kilometres, rose by 6.2 per cent while cargo and mail revenue tonne kilometres (RTKs) flown increased by 1.4 per cent. In the year to the end of July, tonnage rose by 6.8 per cent against a capacity increase of 8.5 per cent and a 9.0 per cent rise in RTKs.

Cathay Pacific GM cargo sales & marketing Mark Sutch said: “After a flat second quarter, demand for air freight shipments remained below expectations throughout July. The growth in tonnage lagged the growth in capacity by a sizeable margin, which dragged down the month’s load factor. Yield remained under pressure due to overcapacity in a number of markets. Among the positive stories of the month, demand into and out of India continued to be ahead of expectations and we also saw an upsurge in project shipments out of Western China, and Chongqing in particular.”

The two airlines meanwhile, carried a total of 2.99 million passengers in July – an increase of 6.9 per cent compared to July 2014.