Cathay Pacific cargo carried drops 24% in Nov
Cargo revenue tonne kilometres (RFTKs) decreased 28% year-on-year and were down 38% compared with November 2019
Cathay Pacific carried 103,092 tonnes of cargo in November, a decrease of 24 percent compared with November 2021, and a 42 percent decline compared with the same period in 2019.
Cargo revenue tonne kilometres (RFTKs) decreased 28 percent year-on-year and were down 38 percent compared with November 2019, says an official release.
"The cargo load factor decreased by 15.6 percentage points to 66.9 percent while capacity, measured in available cargo tonne kilometres (AFTKs), decreased by 11 percent year-on-year, and was down by 36.4 percent versus November 2019. In the first 11 months of 2022, the tonnage decreased by 12.6 percent against a 20.7 percent decrease in capacity and a 30.6 percent decrease in RFTKs compared with the same period for 2021."
Chief Customer and Commercial Officer Ronald Lam says: "Demand remained flat in November compared with the previous month despite it being the start of the traditional peak cargo period. We carried 103,092 tonnes of cargo last month, approximately 6 percent less than in October while cargo flight capacity was down about 2 percent in November compared with the previous month. Overall, we operated about 64 percent of pre-pandemic capacity levels.
"Production activities in the Chinese Mainland and trade flows remained constrained. While we did witness a mild uptick in e-commerce movements into the Americas around the Black Friday shopping period, a similar surge on regional lanes was more short-lived.
"Conversely, movements of perishable goods from South America as well as Australia and New Zealand were relatively active. As such, we operated five non-scheduled services from Darwin, Australia carrying fresh seasonal produce into North Asia to capitalise on this activity.
"Building on the experience gained over the past few years and the evolving needs of the pharmaceutical industry, last month we refreshed our pharmaceuticals solution under a new name, Cathay Pharma. This has seen us enhance our customer proposition, making it easier for customers to identify all of the possible options for pharmaceutical shipments in a more streamlined way."
Cargo carried cumulatively till November dropped 13 percent to 1 million tonnes, and cargo revenue tonne km declined 31 percent to 5.1 million.
"Our expanding passenger travel network will provide our cargo customers with more destinations and greater frequencies to choose from as well. However, we expect headwinds in the air cargo market to continue in the short term until supply chains in the Chinese Mainland become more stable and inventory levels in key consumer markets reduce," says Lam.
