A surge in transshipments pushed air freight volumes higher in May year-over-year for both Hong Kong International Airport (HKIA) and national flag carrier Cathay Pacific Group.
HKIA recorded continuous growth in cargo and passenger volumes in May, as cargo and airmail throughput rose by 4.3% to 436,000 tonnes, while passenger volume increased by 1% to 6.04 million.
Transshipments recorded a year-on-year increase of 16%, contributing the most to the growth in cargo throughput. During the month, Southeast Asia and India increased most significantly among the key trading regions, said HKIA in a release.
Passenger growth in May was contributed by both Hong Kong residents’ travel and visitor traffic. The two passenger categories both grew by 5% year-on-year. Passenger traffic to/from Japan and Mainland China recorded the most significant increases.
Over the first five months of the year, HKIA handled 30.7 million passengers and 2.03 million tonnes of cargo and airmail, representing year-on-year increases of 3% and 4.1%, respectively.
On a rolling 12-month basis, HKIA recorded 73.8 million passengers and 5.13 million tonnes of cargo and airmail, representing year-on-year growth of 3.9% and 6.5%, respectively.
HKIA operator and developer Airport Authority Hong Kong recently awarded the tender for a premium logistics center at Kwo Lo Wan in the South Cargo Precinct of HKIA, which is seen to provide further impetus to the territory’s air cargo development through the capture of the rapidly growing global e-commerce business.
On the other hand, combined Cathay Pacific and Cathay Dragon traffic figures for May 2018 show an increase in cargo and mail uplifted and a slight drop in the number of passengers carried compared to the same month in 2017.
Cathay Pacific and Cathay Dragon carried 175,074 tonnes of cargo and mail last month, an increase of 8.2% compared to the same month last year. The cargo and mail load factor rose by 2.3 percentage points to 68.6%. Capacity was up by 3.8% while cargo and mail revenue freight tonne kilometers (RFTKs) increased by 7.4%.
In the first five months of 2018, the tonnage rose by 7.9% against a 4.5% increase in capacity and a 7.7% increase in RFTKs.
The two airlines carried a total of 2,827,634 passengers last month—a drop of 0.8% compared to May 2017. The passenger load factor decreased 2.2 percentage points to 82%, while capacity increased by 2.9%. In the first five months of 2018, the number of passenger carried grew by 1.4% while capacity increased by 3%.
Cathay Pacific said: “In terms of cargo, we had stable uplift in May. Higher transshipment flow across the network helped improve our load factor, while yield also strengthened. Our new European routes to Brussels, Copenhagen and Dublin were all launched smoothly and are performing in line with our expectations.”
Photo: User Siqbal on en.wikipedia
