OREANDA-NEWS. February 21, 2011. Cathay Pacific Airways treleased combined Cathay Pacific and Dragonair traffic figures for January 2011 that show an increase in the number of passengers and amount of cargo and mail carried year on year, though there was a drop in load factors due to the increase in capacity, reported the press-centre of Cathay Pacific Airways.

Cathay Pacific and Dragonair carried a total of 2,243,788 passengers in January – up 6.8% on the same month in 2010. The passenger load factor, however, was down by 2.5 percentage points to 81.3%. Capacity for the month, measured in available seat kilometres (ASKs), was up by 10.1%.

The two airlines carried 144,402 tonnes of cargo in January 2011, a rise of 8.9% compared to January last year, while the cargo and mail load factor was down 7.1 percentage points to 67.8%. Capacity, measured in available cargo/mail tonne kilometres, was up by 25.5%, while cargo and mail tonne kilometres flown were up by 13.7%.

Cathay Pacific General Manager Revenue Management Tom Owen said: "Passenger traffic held up quite well following the Christmas and New Year peaks, and the quality of revenue in all classes of travel saw an improvement over the same period in 2010. Premium traffic volumes remained steady and we saw a strong spike in leisure travel on our regional routes towards the end of the month due to the Chinese New Year holidays. This also flattered the monthly growth comparisons year over year as the Chinese New Year holiday effect was not seen until February in 2010.”

Cathay Pacific General Manager Cargo Sales & Marketing James Woodrow said: “Freight volumes fell away a little following the 2010 year-end peak but, overall, traffic still held up quite well throughout the first month of 2011.Demand out of the key Hong Kong and Mainland China markets was a little softer than anticipated but this freed up space to enable us to carry more shipments from other destinations in the network. The expected pre-Chinese New Year rush did not materialize to the extent seen in previous years.”