Cathay Pacific saw its cargo volumes drop in January as the ongoing coronavirus outbreak dragged its results.

In a statement, Cathay Pacific reported a combined 151,964 tonnes of cargo and mail carried last month together with Cathay Dragon, recording 8.9% decline compared to the same month last year.

The cargo and mail load factor declined by 1.4 percentage points to 60.2%, while capacity, measured in available freight tonne kilometres (AFTKs), was down by 3.2%.

Cargo and mail revenue freight tonne kilometres (RFTKs) also decreased by 5.4%.

"We saw reasonably solid demand across our network for the first three weeks of January. Our mainland China point of sales particularly stood out, recording year-on-year tonnage growth. By the last week of January, however, overall demand plummeted as manufacturing came to a halt in mainland China during the Chinese New Year holiday," said Ronald Lam, Cathay Pacific Group chief customer and commercial officer.

“The delay of the post-Chinese New Year resumption of manufacturing across mainland China has significantly affected both our Hong Kong and mainland China markets. However, demand elsewhere across our network remains buoyant, especially on trade lanes that have seen significant reductions in passenger capacity," he added.

Subdued outlook for 2020

The Hong Kong-based airline also warned that its financial results for the first half could be under pressure.

“The first half of 2020 was already expected to be extremely challenging financially. As a result of this additional significant drop in demand for flights and consequential capacity reduction caused by the novel coronavirus outbreak, the financial results for the first half of 2020 will be significantly down on the same period last year," Lam said.

Cathay Pacific also announced further capacity cuts across its network – for February through March.

The airline – together with subsidiary Cathay Dragon – will implement passenger capacity cut of 40%, an even deeper cut than the 30% capacity reduction it announced earlier this month.

The fresh challenge brought by the coronavirus comes as the Hong Kong carrier is yet to recover from the slowdown seen last year mainly attributed to the local political unrest in the city.