Cathay Pacific Airways today released combined Cathay Pacific and Dragonair traffic figures for August 2016 showing an increase in the amount of cargo and mail uplifted and a drop in the number of passengers carried compared to the same month last year.

The two airlines carried 153,733 tonnes of cargo and mail in August, an increase of 3.8 per cent compared to the same month last year. The cargo and mail load factor rose by 2.7 percentage points to 63.3 per cent. Capacity, measured in available cargo/mail tonne kilometres, dropped by 2.6 per cent, while cargo and mail revenue tonne kilometres (RTKs) increased by 1.7 per cent. In the first eight months of 2016, the tonnage carried rose by 1.2 per cent against a 0.3 per cent increase in capacity and a 0.7 per cent drop in RTKs.

Cathay Pacific general manager cargo sales & marketing Mark Sutch said: “Overall cargo demand in August was reasonably robust and tonnage continued to stabilise. Freighters on our North American routes were generally full. We now see the momentum for exports out of Hong Kong and Mainland China building.

“As expected, the yields are gradually improving although there remains a gap when compared with the same period last year. We are planning to operate our maximum freighter schedule over the coming peak to match with the forecast demand from various new product launches.”

The two airlines carried a total of 2.98 million passengers last month – a decrease of 3.8 per cent compared to August 2015.