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 … [Read more...] about Marginal cargo growth continues for Cathay

Air China will start Beijing- Johannesburg nonstop service using B777-300ER aircraft from 29 October 2015, which will be the first air link offered by a Chinese carrier between Mainland China and South Africa and also Air China’s first route to Africa since the 1970s when it had one nonstop service to the continent. South Africa accounts for about one third of Africa’s GDP and is also China’s biggest trading partner in Africa. Currently, nearly 1.2 million Chinese live in South Africa and … [Read more...] about Air China to open two Africa routes

China Southern Airlines has become the latest airline to join IAG Cargo’s Partner Plus Programme. From August 2015, IAG Cargo customers will benefit from confirmed space booked on China Southern Airlines aircraft to a range of new destinations including Auckland, Brisbane, Melbourne, Perth and Urumqi. In total, six carriers now form the Partner Plus programme including Qatar Airways, Japan Airlines, the Avianca group, American Airlines and Finnair. Steve Gunning, CEO of IAG Cargo, … [Read more...] about China Southern joins IAG partner programme

The Cathay Pacific Group has reported an attributable profit of HK$1,972 million (US$254.4 million) for the first six months of 2015. This compares to a profit of HK$347 million in the first half of 2014. Revenue for the period decreased by 0.9 per cent to HK$50,388 million. The Group’s performance in the first six months of 2015 was considerably better than in the same period in 2014, Cathay noted citing higher load factors in the Group’s passenger business as a key reason. There was an … [Read more...] about Cathay Pacific sees six-fold rise in 1H net profit

A combination of the erratic global air and sea freight markets, a growing shift in geographic focus towards the regional and the application of advanced technology and data analysis to the market is bringing the fate of the traditional freight forwarding model into question, according to a new report from Transport Intelligence (Ti). Ti’s annual Global Freight Forwarding 2015 report notes that capacity excesses and declining rates describes a tumultuous sea freight market, while air freight … [Read more...] about Is traditional freight forwarding model obsolete?

Kenya Airways chief executive officer Mbuvi Ngunze has revealed that the struggling East African carrier has hired Seabury Consulting, an advisory firm specialising in airline strategy development and turnarounds, to help revamp its operations. Speaking at a press conference in Nairobi last week, Ngunze said that since the beginning of the year, Seabury specialists had been analysing Kenya Airways’ sales, ticketing, and network planning functions with a view to bringing them into line with … [Read more...] about Struggling Kenya Airways enlists Seabury