Cathay Pacific is gearing for the peak season with more capacity and its freighters operating a full schedule,  supported by cargo-only passenger operations focused on regional destinations.

Frosti Lau, GM Cargo Service Delivery said, for example, that Cathay Pacific has already increased frequency to the US, and is now also operating daily to London Heathrow.

Peak season to be less pronounced

"As we head towards the busiest part of the year, we are continuing to add belly capacity from our returning passenger services," Lau said.

"This extra capacity will help as we prepare for a busy peak, although we are anticipating it may not be as sustained and pronounced as last year's," he added.

The Cathay executive noted that worsening global inflation is having an impact on some areas of consumer demand, the supply chain disruption of recent months has dampened manufacturing output, and there continue to be constraints from Covid-19 on the Chinese mainland.

Lau said while hi-tech is one of those sectors that may be adversely affected, there are also rumours of consumer product launches later this year that may yet stimulate demand.

"As flights are being adjusted, we are working with our suppliers in outports to ensure that they are ready to handle our flights smoothly and to avoid some of the disruptions we have seen post-pandemic," he added.

Beyond that, Cathay Pacific is also working towards the next-generation, digitally enabled future of air freight.

Lau said Cathay Pacific recently launched two new Cargo iQ milestones— introduced in Hong Kong ahead of a fuller roll-out to bring transparency to the handover between the airport ramp and the cargo terminal.

"This will produce performance data that we can monitor to continue improving our processes. In future, and as the second phase of our Smart ULD initiative, we will be able to trigger these new milestones automatically using transmitters on each of our load devices," Lau said.

"We estimate that all of the load devices we use will be smart-enabled by the end of the year."

This month, Cathay also introduced its new carbon offset programme for cargo that will enable its customers to audit emissions from their shipments with accuracy and offset them by supporting projects, each with a valuable development component.

"We are also trialling systems ahead of the new European Commission customs regulations that come into force next year," Lau added.