Cathay Pacific and subsidiary Dragonair carried a total of 147,690 tonnes of cargo and mail in January 2016, a 0.3% year-on-year increase.

However, the two airlines’ revenue tonne-kilometres flown fell by 0.5%, and the freight load factor was 61.6%, a decrease of 1.8 percentage points compared to the same month in 2014.

“We saw a falloff in air-freight demand after the end-of-year peak and we reduced the number of freighter services operated accordingly,” said Mark Sutch, general manager of cargo sales and marketing at Cathay Pacific. “Demand on the key trans-Pacific routes was solid, and we continued to see strong cargo traffic to and from India. The January result was boosted by a surge in shipments towards the end of the month in advance of the Chinese New Year holiday. Rate-cutting as a result of overcapacity continued to out significant pressure on cargo yield.”