Cathay Pacific Airways today released combined Cathay Pacific and Dragonair traffic figures for October 2015 showing growth in both the number of passengers carried and the amount of cargo and mail uplifted compared to the same month in 2014.

The two airlines carried 163,733 tonnes of cargo and mail in October, an increase of 4.6 per cent compared to the same month last year. The cargo and mail load factor rose by 1.4 percentage points to 66.5 per cent.

Capacity, measured in available cargo/mail tonne kilometres, rose by 0.8 per cent while cargo and mail revenue tonne kilometres (RTKs) flown increased by 2.9 per cent. In the year to the end of October, tonnage rose by 5.5 per cent against a capacity increase of 6.5 per cent and a 6.8 per cent rise in RTKs.

“Demand for airfreight shipments continued to climb as we moved into the traditional peak period,” said Cathay Pacific general manager cargo sales & marketing Mark Sutch. “We moved to a full freighter schedule as traffic on the transpacific routes increased and demand to and from India continued to strengthen.

“Our teams worked hard to push up the load factor for both freighters and passenger aircraft belly space; however, overcapacity in the market continued to put pressure on yield. Current indications are that this year’s cargo peak will run through until the end of November.”