The aviation industry had a good October for its cargo segment. Hong Kong International Airport (HKIA) reported that cargo volume handled rose 4.3% to 383,000 tonnes, mainly driven by a 15% year-on-year growth in transshipments.
During the month, cargo throughput to and from North America and Southeast Asia increased most significantly compared to other key regions, a company release said.
In the first 10 months of 2014, HKIA handled a total of 3.6 million tonnes of cargo, representing year-on-year growth of 6.4%. On a 12-month rolling basis, cargo volume rose 6% to 4.3 million tonnes.
Cathay Pacific group logs 14% hike in volume
Hong Kong’s Cathay Pacific Airways group likewise noted growth in October volumes for its two airlines Cathay Pacific and Dragonair.
The two airlines carried 156,590 tonnes of cargo and mail last month, an increase of 14% compared to October last year. The cargo and mail load factor rose by 3.5 percentage points to 65.1%. Capacity, measured in available cargo/mail tonne kilometers, rose by 12.3%, while cargo and mail revenue tonne kilometres (RTKs) flown were up by 18.7%.
For the year to the end of October, tonnage rose by 11.9% while capacity was up 11.4% and RTKs increased by 15%.
“The airfreight markets remained buoyant in October and we saw a continued surge in demand out of Hong Kong and Mainland China, which was still being driven by shipments of consumer IT products,” said Mark Sutch, Cathay Pacific general manager of cargo sales and marketing.
He continued: “North America remains the focus of our business and we strengthened our network further last month with the launch of a new freighter service to Calgary and increased frequencies into Mexico. Intra-Asia freight is an increasingly important part of our business and we will launch a new twice-weekly service to Phnom Penh this month to capture more of the demand.”
Cargolux records best October ever
For Cargolux Airlines, October 2014 was its “best ever October” in its history with a record performance in tonnage, revenues, and block hours.
Compared to the same month in 2013, the airline saw tonnage grow by 6.7%, while net revenues rose by 9.9%.
“It is a strong indication of an improvement in the quality of revenue and makes October 2014 the second best month in the company’s history after the record-breaking month of November 2013,” said the Luxembourg-based all-cargo airline.
The airline said it continues to achieve the highest daily utilization of all users of the 747-8F with over 16 hours per day in October. The airline’s combined fleet operated 9,379 block hours during the month and flew 1,672 flights on its worldwide network, including 362 flights from Luxembourg, again, more than any other month in the company’s history, except November 2013.
For November 2014, Cargolux expects to substantially improve on the October results with more than 10,000 block hours flown in a single month for the first time ever and a further increase in tonnage and revenues.
Photo: Russavia
