Cathay Pacific released its traffic figures for September 2023, showing cargo demand improved as the airline entered the peak air cargo season.

Cathay Pacific carried 119,963 tonnes of cargo last month, an increase of 15.3% compared with September 2022.

The month's cargo revenue tonne kilometres (RFTKs) increased 16.9% year on year.

Meanwhile, the cargo load factor decreased by 5.3 percentage points to 61.1%, while capacity, measured in available cargo tonne kilometres (AFTKs), increased by 26.9% year on year.

September's volume is also higher than the 116,919 tonnes of cargo in August, an increase of 11.5% compared with August 2022.

"On the cargo side, September marked the start of the traditional peak period, and demand strengthened across most of the network compared with the previous month. Capacity also grew as passenger services were added on some key cargo routes," said Lavinia Lau, chief customer and commercial officer.

E-commerce: a bright spot for cargo

Lau noted that e-commerce remained a bright spot, particularly on the Americas trade lanes.

"Our mail business continued to gain momentum, with several post offices around the world adopting our newly launched Cathay Mail solution to improve their customer experience," Cathay's chief customer and commercial officer said.

In the first nine months of 2023, the tonnage increased by 20.1% against a 77.7% increase in capacity and a 53.8% increase in RFTKs, as compared with the same period for 2022.

Looking ahead, the Cathay executive said loads are expected to build over the next two months, reflecting the year-end demand, and we have been adding freighter capacity on our transpacific routes to cater for this.

"Our intermodal sea-air feeder services from Dongguan will continue to see growth in throughput, providing customers a cost-effective option to move freight from the Greater Bay Area to the Hong Kong hub and onto our global network," Lau said.

The Cathay Group on October 11, announced that shareholder approval had been granted to proceed with a proposed capital reduction which, when completed, will facilitate the Group to buy back 50% — HK$9.75 billion — of the preference shares held by the Hong Kong SAR Government before the end of this year, and the remaining 50% by the end of July 2024, subject to market conditions and the Group's business operations at the relevant time.