Cathay Pacific Airways today released combined Cathay Pacific and Dragonair traffic figures for March 2016 that show a marginal decrease in the volume of cargo and mail uplifted. The two airlines carried 157,006 tonnes of cargo and mail in March, a drop of 0.4 per cent compared to the same month last year.

The cargo and mail load factor fell by 5.4 percentage points to 63 per cent. Capacity, measured in available cargo/mail tonne kilometres, increased by 4.1 per cent while cargo and mail revenue tonne kilometres (RTKs) fell by 4.1 per cent.

In the first quarter of the year, the tonnage carried fell by 3.1 per cent against a 2.6 per cent increase in capacity and a 4.8 per cent drop in RTKs.

Cathay Pacific general manager cargo sales & marketing Mark Sutch said: “Following a generally weak February, we saw some improvement in airfreight demand in March. This was helped by the shipment of new consumer IT products out of the major manufacturing cities of Western China.

“There was a pickup in traffic on key transpacific routes, and we mounted a number of additional flights into India in response to continued robust demand. Overall, however, the air cargo markets remain soft and yield remains under pressure in what is a highly competitive environment.”