Cathay Pacific Group today released combined Cathay Pacific and Cathay Dragon traffic figures for January 2018 that show a decrease in number of passengers carried and an increase in cargo and mail uplifted compared to the same month in 2017.

Cathay Pacific and Cathay Dragon carried a total of 2,911,355 passengers last month - a decrease of 1.9% compared to January 2017. The passenger load factor dropped 2.3 percentage points to 84.2%, while capacity, measured in available seat kilometres (ASKs), increased by 2.6%.

The two airline s carried 172,622 tonnes of cargo and mail last month, an increase of 14.2% compared to the same month last year. The cargo and mail load factor rose by 3.5 percentage points to 65.4%. Capacity, measured in available cargo/mail tonne kilometres, was up by 4.6% while cargo and mail revenue tonne kilometres (RTKs) increased by 10.5%.

Cathay Pacific Director Commercial and Cargo Ronald Lam said: "Overall performance in January was distorted because of Chinese New Year starting later this year when compared to 2017. Demand for premium class travel continued to be robust during the month, while student return traffic on long-haul routes, especially those to the United Kingdom and Southwest Pacific, was strong early in the month. Indian routes were our star performers, with passenger volumes rising higher than capacity increases."

"Meanwhile, our cargo business got off to a solid start in 2018. As expected, airfreight volumes subsided a little after the year-end peak, but overall, markets remained relatively buoyant in January. The pre-Chinese New Year rush out of Hong Kong and mainland China was a little softer than anticipated, but this enabled the carriage of more trans-shipment across our network. The inbound load factor improved across all route groups, with overall tonnage growing ahead of capacity. In terms of products, the flow of perishables into Asia and e-commerce movements from the region continued to be healthy in the lead up to the Chinese New Year holiday period."