Cathay Pacific Airways today released combined Cathay Pacific and Dragonair traffic figures for July 2008 that show a near double digit growth in the number of passengers carried by the two airlines compared to the same month in 2007, along with a rise in cargo tonnage.

In July the two airlines carried a total of 2,308,738 passengers - an increase of 9.7% over the same month last year. The month's load factor was down 0.5 percentage points to 84.1%, while capacity, measured in available seat kilometres (ASKs), increased by 16.3% on the previous year. For the year to date, the passenger total is up 13.1% compared to a capacity rise of 14.6%.

Cathay Pacific and Dragonair between them carried 142,770 tonnes of cargo and mail in July, up 5.0% on July 2007. Capacity for the month, measured in available cargo/mail tonne kilometres, grew by 2.4% while the cargo and mail load factor dipped by 0.1 percentage points to 66.0%. For the year to date, the 6.6% rise in cargo tonnage compares to a 6.2% capacity climb.

Cathay Pacific General Manager Revenue Management Tom Owen said: "Passenger traffic continued to grow in the traditional peak period of July, with a high total passenger load factor only marginally down on the previous year, despite significant capacity additions to Australia, North America and India. The outlook remains reasonable for the rest of the summer period. Due to the impact of soaring fuel prices, we will redeploy some of our North American capacity from October, by adding services to the Middle East and Australia, and upgrading some services to Europe where we can better cover our costs."

Cathay Pacific General Manager Cargo Sales & Marketing Titus Diu said: "We were pleased to see cargo and mail tonnage growth once again stay ahead of capacity growth, though demand into and out of Northeast Asia remained weak. The continued high price of fuel is making it more difficult to operate profitably, particularly on long-haul routes, making it imperative to move to a more fuel-efficient fleet. Our second Boeing 747-400ERF "Extended Range Freighter", which arrives in August, will be a boon on long-haul trunk routes."