Hong Kong carrier sees tonnage drop
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.
