Lower volumes and less capacity for Cathay Pacific
Because of continuously sinking volumes at its hub in Hong Kong, the world’s largest cargo airport, Cathay Pacific Cargo has retired its last B747-400BCF from its fleet earlier than the end of November as originally planned. At one time the company’s fleet contained fourteen B747-400BCF aircraft. Now, after this aircraft with a load capacity of 111 t has been retired, the company still has six B747-400ERF (127 t) and fourteen B747-8F (135 t) as pure freighters at its disposal.
During September, Cathay Pacific and Cathay Dragon carried 172,637 t of cargo and mail, a drop of 4.4% compared to the same month last year. The cargo and mail load factor fell by 3.7 percentage points to 65.5%. Cargo and mail revenue freight tonne kilometres (RFTK) dropped by 5.3%.
In the first nine months of 2019, the tonnage fell by 6.8% against a 0.7% increase in capacity and a 7.0% decrease in RFTK, as compared to the same period for 2018. (ah)