Cathay September combined cargo slips

Hong Kong - Cathay Pacific Airways said collective cargo and mail tonnage with Dragonair slipped in September, hampered by slack demand in China.

Last month Cathay Pacific and Dragonair's load factor was down 6.7 percentage points to 72.3%.

The two airlines carried a total of 141,570 tonnes of cargo and mail in September, a drop of 7.3% on the same month in 2007 against a 4.7% fall in capacity, measured in available cargo/mail tonne kilometres.

Titus Diu, general manager of cargo sales and marketing, Cathay Pacific said, "The expected post-Olympics surge from Mainland China didn't materialise and there was also no significant rush before either the Mid-Autumn Festival or National Day holidays; our uplift was also affected by Typhoon Hagupit and other tropical storms during the month," he said.

The cargo and mail load factor fell by 2.6 percentage points to 66.5%. For the year to date, cargo and mail tonnage has climbed by 3.7% compared to a capacity rise of 3.5%.

"Currently, the only market showing consistent weakness is Northeast Asia, though the situation could change in the aftermath of the recent financial crisis," said Diu.