Cathay Pacific Cargo has expressed optimism for the peak season, noting its the current performance and the boost it got from transporting freight for the Chinese e-commerce shopping sale on 11.11, the Thanksgiving holiday and upcoming Christmas.

While saying that its performance this year was "still below what it was the same time last year" Cathay Pacific Cargo volumes have picked from recent months of decline.

"The last quarter of the year looks promising with positive momentum through October and November," said James Conlin, head of cargo global partnerships at Cathay Pacific.

"This spike has been propelled by a number of charter operations for consumer product launches, and more recently, by China's Single's Day Shopping Festival on 11 November, as well as restocking in preparation for Thanksgiving and Christmas," he added.

The Hong Kong-based carrier also noted that volumes from the 11.11 shopping feast, "appeared to shrug off the impact of the trade war.

Hope for US-China trade war resolution

Conlin added that there were also "positive inklings" of a phase one trade deal between China and the US although "uncertainty persists" as transpacific trade tensions have once again escalated recently.

"We do remain cautiously optimistic about 2020 but anticipate a weak first half," he added.

Cathay Pacific, he noted, will be monitoring the movement of some production centres in the region and will be responsive to resultant changes in trade flows.

Earlier, Cathay Pacific Group saw its cargo volumes further decline year-on-year in October but relatively better than the month prior as the overall market remains challenging.

Cathay Pacific and Cathay Dragon carried 183,119 tonnes of cargo and mail in October, recording a decline of 4.9% compared to the same month last year. This is, however higher than the 172,637 recorded in September.

Cargo and mail load factor also fell by 2.4 percentage points to 68% as capacity, measured in available freight tonne kilometres (AFTKs), was down 2.5%.

The group said its second-half results will be "significantly below" the first-half and that the short-term outlook remains challenging and uncertain.