Cathay Pacific and Cathay Dragon carried a total of 3,127,437 passengers last month, an increase of 7.4% compared to January 2018. The passenger load factor increased 1.9 percentage points to 86.1%, while capacity, measured in available seat kilometres (ASKs), increased by 7.1%.

The two airlines carried 166,735 tonnes of cargo and mail last month, a decrease of 3.4% compared to the same month last year. The cargo and mail load factor fell by 3.8 percentage points to 61.6%. Capacity, measured in available freight tonne kilometres (AFTKs), was increased by 0.8% while cargo and mail revenue freight tonne kilometres (RFTKs) decreased by 5.2%.

Cathay Pacific Director Commercial and Cargo Ronald Lam said: “Chinese New Year this year was earlier than last, leading to a slight distortion in both passenger and cargo revenue for January and February.

“Passenger revenue performed well with positive year-on-year growth in terms of load factor and yield. The robust Business Class demand of late 2018 continued into January, while we also saw improved volumes in Economy Class, driven by pre-Chinese New Year traffic from Hong Kong and mainland China. Our new route to Tokushima enjoyed a strong start to the month.

“Cargo uplift gradually picked up before Chinese New Year but the pre-holiday rush was not as strong as last year. As a result, our cargo revenue recorded small negative year-on-year growth in January. Some short-term capacity rationalisation was made to better match demand.”