Cathay Pacific and Cathay Dragon carried a total of 3,100,132 passengers last month – an increase of 6.0% compared to June 2018. The passenger load factor increased 1.4 percentage points to 86.7%, while capacity, measured in available seat kilometres (ASKs), increased by 7.3%. In the first six months of 2019, the number of passengers carried grew by 4.4% while capacity increased by 6.7%.

The two airlines carried 163,977 tonnes of cargo and mail last month, a drop of 9.1% compared to the same month last year. The cargo and mail load factor fell by 7.8 percentage points to 62.8%. Capacity, measured in available freight tonne kilometres (AFTKs), was up by 1.5% while cargo and mail revenue freight tonne kilometres (RFTKs) dropped by 9.7%. In the first six months of 2019, the tonnage fell by 5.7% against a 1.1% increase in capacity and a 6.1% decrease in RFTKs.

Cathay Pacific Director Commercial and Cargo Ronald Lam said: “Passenger demand remained robust for both business and leisure travel in June, with first and business class load factor reaching its highest level over a decade. However, intense market competition continued to exert pressure on yield. Long-haul regions such as North America and Europe performed behind expectations, particularly on the yield front. Such pressure on yield is expected to continue in the coming months.

“On the cargo side, weakening market sentiment has been impacting our tonnage uplift and yield. With the exception of the Americas, Northeast Asia and mainland China, which had a marginal increase in uplift compared to May, overall volume has seen decline against the previous month and year, with only a short-lived recovery from Asia towards the latter half of June. The outlook for the coming months has not seen signs of volume rebound. We shall further our efforts to maintain a healthy market share by working closely with our forwarders and shippers, and further rationalise our freighter capacity to better match demand.”