Cathay Pacific Airways today released combined Cathay Pacific and Dragonair traffic figures for July 2013 that show a year-on-year rise in the number of passengers carried. Cargo and mail tonnage fell compared to the same month in 2012.

Cathay Pacific and Dragonair carried a total of 2,679,193 passengers in July - an increase of 6.9% compared to the same month last year. The passenger load factor was up 3.9 percentage points to 85.0%, while capacity, measured in available seat kilometres (ASKs), rose by 0.1%. For the year to date, the number of passengers carried has increased by 2.1% while capacity has fallen by 4.1%.

The two airlines carried 122,920 tonnes of cargo and mail last month, a drop of 1.9% compared to July 2012. The cargo and mail load factor fell by 4.4 percentage points to 60.3%. Capacity, measured in available cargo/mail tonne kilometres, rose by 6.6% while cargo and mail revenue tonne kilometres were down by 0.7%. For the year to date, tonnage has fallen by 1.8% compared to a 0.6% capacity decline.

Cathay Pacific General Manager Revenue Management James Tong said: "We enjoyed a strong start to the summer peak period, with good loads on major long-haul routes and also to the key holiday destinations within the region. However, the comparison with last year is distorted by the effect of Severe Typhoon Vicente, which had a major impact on our operations in July 2012. The Economy cabins were particularly busy last month; demand in the premium cabins was generally weaker, but in line with our expectations for the summer peak."

Cathay Pacific General Manager Cargo Sales & Marketing Mark Sutch said: "Demand was soft out of many of the major airfreight markets last month and once again we saw tonnage and load factor dropping compared to 2012, when business was already weak. The bright spots in our network were the transpacific lanes and demand on intra-Asia routes, particular out of Hanoi and Dhaka. Europe and Japan remain two of the weaker markets at the moment."

Glossary

Terms:

Available seat kilometres ("ASK")
Passenger seat capacity, measured in seats available for the carriage of passengers on each sector multiplied by the sector distance.

Available tonne kilometres ("ATK")
Overall capacity measured in tonnes available for the carriage of passengers, excess baggage, cargo and mail on each sector multiplied by the sector distance.

Available cargo/mail tonne kilometres
Cargo capacity measured in tonnes available for the carriage of cargo and mail on each sector multiplied by the sector distance.

Revenue passenger kilometres ("RPK")
Number of passengers carried on each sector multiplied by the sector distance.

Cargo and Mail revenue tonne kilometres
Traffic volume, measured in load tonnes from the carriage of cargo and mail on each sector multiplied by the sector distance.

Ratio: