OREANDA-NEWS. Cathay Pacific Airways today released combined Cathay Pacific and Dragonair traffic figures for the first month of 2015 that show an increase in both the number of passengers carried and the cargo and mail tonnage uplifted compared to the same month in 2014.

Cathay Pacific and Dragonair carried a total of 2,612,964 passengers in January - an increase of 2.7% compared to the same month last year. The passenger load factor shrank by 0.7 percentage points to 82.7% while capacity, measured in available seat kilometres (ASKs), increased by 7.3%.

The two airlines carried 147,275 tonnes of cargo and mail last month, an increase of 12.5% compared to the previous January. The cargo and mail load factor rose by 2.9 percentage points to 63.4%. Capacity, measured in available cargo/mail tonne kilometres, rose by 8.9% while cargo and mail revenue tonne kilometres (RTKs) flown were up by 14.1%.

Cathay Pacific General Manager Revenue Management Patricia Hwang said: "The month began well, with strong returning traffic from the Christmas and New Year holidays. However, the dip in demand between New Year and Chinese New Year was steeper than anticipated and the increase in passenger numbers failed to keep pace with the increase in capacity. Passenger yield was impacted by the weakness in certain currencies, including the euro, yen and the Canadian and Australian dollars, as well as a shift in Chinese New Year which distorted year-on-year comparisons."

Cathay Pacific General Manager Cargo Sales & Marketing Mark Sutch said: "Demand fell away, as expected, after the very busy end to 2014, but the markets remained relatively buoyant, particularly on the North American lanes. Traffic out of the key Hong Kong and Mainland China markets was much stronger than in the same month last year. We saw a pick-up in demand as January progressed and by the end of the month we were operating close to a full freighter schedule. We expect to see something of a mini-rush before the Chinese New Year holidays begin."