The airline carried 114,790 tonnes of cargo in January, an increase of 20.7% compared with January 2023 when capacity was still in recovery mode due to pandemic restrictions.
“The month’s cargo revenue tonne kilometres (RFTKs) increased 11.4 percent year on year. The cargo load factor decreased by 3.6 percentage points to 58.6 percent while available cargo tonne kilometres (AFTKs) increased by 18.3 percent year on year,”
Lavinia Lau, Chief Customer, and Commercial Officer, Cathay Pacific says: “Demand for air cargo traditionally softens in January after the year-end peak period and our tonnage was down 11 percent compared with December 2023. However, when compared with January 2023, tonnage was up by 21 percent. Demand started to improve from the second week of January and we observed an increase in tonnage across our entire network. Perishable shipments were the bright spot especially from the Southwest Pacific to Asia.”
Outlook – “In terms of cargo, the strong demand continued through to the start of the Lunar New Year holiday but has now begun to ease,” adds Lau. “Looking ahead to March, Cathay Cargo will be the host airline for IATA’s World Cargo Symposium 2024. This is the first time that Hong Kong will host this major annual IATA event, which is scheduled to take place from March 12 to 14. We eagerly look forward to welcoming experts and leaders from across the air cargo and logistics industry to our home city.”
The Cathay Group has paid the latest dividend of about HK$243.8 million ($29.3 million) due on the preference shares held by the Hong Kong SAR Government on February 14, 2024. To date, the Cathay Group has disbursed more than HK$2.2 billion ($264 million) in preference share dividends to the Hong Kong SAR Government. The Cathay Group bought back 50 percent of the preference shares in December 2023 and intends to buy back the remaining preference shares by the end of July 2024, subject to market conditions and its business operations at the relevant time.
