Monday, February 10, 2025

Cathay Pacific releases traffic figures for June 2024

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Cathay Pacific today released its traffic figures for June 2024, which saw a new record achieved.

The airline carried 124,568 tonnes of cargo in June 2024, an increase of 12% compared with June 2023.

The month’s cargo revenue tonne kilometres (RFTKs) increased 5.6% year on year.

The cargo load factor decreased by 2.1 percentage points to 59.6%, while available cargo tonne kilometres (AFTKs) increased by 9.4% year on year.

In the first six months of 2024, the tonnage increased by 10.5% to a total of 719,464 tonnes, against an 11.4% increase in AFTKs and a 4.6% increase in RFTKs, as compared with the same period for 2023.

Lavinia Lau, Chief Customer and Commercial Officer said: “June is traditionally a slower month for air cargo; however, demand was stronger than anticipated and we observed strong year-on-year tonnage growth from Hong Kong, the Chinese Mainland, Japan and Europe in particular.

“Across our network, our tonnage was 3% higher than May and 12% above June last year. In terms of commodity mix, we observed an uptick of pharmaceuticals shipments, especially from Europe.

“In June, we relaunched Cathay Expert to provide customers with a fully customised handling solution for their odd size, heavy or fragile cargo. The response from our customers has been positive and we observed a 34% tonnage improvement for Cathay Expert compared with the previous month.

“The second half of the year is the traditional peak period and we expect the healthy demand we have seen throughout the first half of the year to continue. Market sentiment, particularly out of Hong Kong and the Chinese Mainland, continues to be positive.

“We will continue to adjust our freighter capacity to accommodate our customers’ needs, including adding more freighter capacity to the Americas.

“Earlier this month, we announced that on 31 July 2024 we will buy back the remaining 50% – HK$9.75 billion – of the preference shares that were issued to the Hong Kong SAR Government as part of our recapitalisation in 2020, and pay any remaining unpaid preference share dividends up to 31 July 2024.

“This will bring the total amount of the preference share dividends paid to the Hong Kong SAR Government over its holding period to HK$2.44 billion.

“We would like to thank the Hong Kong SAR Government and all shareholders for their invaluable support both during and since the pandemic.”

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