Cathay Cargo’s February airfreight volumes were up nearly 12% year on year, despite the Lunar New Year holiday slowdown.
The cargo business of Cathay Pacific said it carried 11.8% more cargo in February 2025 than in February 2024.
The increase was partly due to the fact that demand picked up at the end of February, helped by electronics shipments.
Available Freight Tonne Kilometres (FTKs) increased by 3.5%, while the cargo load factor decreased by 1.4 percentage points year on year to 57.8% as revenue FTKs were up just 1%.
Overall, in the first two months of 2025, the total tonnage increased by 12.8% compared with the same period for 2024.
Chief customer and commercial officer Lavinia Lau said: "Demand from our Hong Kong hub and the wider Greater Bay Area market started slowly due to the Lunar New Year holiday but picked up towards the end of February.
"We observed continued growth in our Cathay Secure solution, driven by increased shipments of electronics from the Chinese Mainland and Southeast Asia.
"We were also proud to be the official airline sponsor of the Longines Hong Kong International Horse Show, transporting around 70 of the world’s finest sports horses from Liège and London to Hong Kong, showcasing our expertise and care in transporting live animals."
Lau added that Cathay Cargo expects air cargo demand to pick up in March.
“For March, we expect market demand to pick up as we ramp up our scheduled freighter frequencies to prepare for the quarter end. We are also keeping a close watch on the volatility of the cargo market, and will leverage our built-in flexibility to adjust our network and capacity to capture demand changes.”
Cathay Cargo saw cargo revenues increase 8.3% last year to HK$24bn on the back of a 10.9% increase in cargo volumes to 1.5m tonnes and a 5% improvement in revenue freight tonne km to 8.5bn (RFTK).
