Cathay Pacific Airways recently released combined Cathay Pacific and Dragonair traffic figures for May 2015 that display both the number of passengers carried and the cargo and mail uplift growing compared to the same month last year.

Cathay Pacific and Dragonair carried a total of 2,901,558 passengers in May an increase of 11.8% compared to the same month last year. The passenger load factor grew by 2.9 percentage points to 85.9% while capacity, measured in available seat kilometres (ASKs), increased by 7.5%. In the year to the end of May, passenger traffic grew by 9.1% while capacity was up by 6.5%

The two airlines carried 147,034 tonnes of cargo and mail last month, an increase of 6.2% compared to May 2014. The cargo and mail load factor fell by 0.9 percentage points to 62.1%. Capacity, measured in available cargo/mail tonne kilometres, rose by 11.1% while cargo and mail revenue tonne kilometres (RTKs) flown increased by 9.5%. In the year to the end of May, tonnage rose by 9.6% against a capacity escalation of 9.6% and a 12.2% rise in RTKs.

Cathay Pacific General Manager Revenue Management Patricia Hwang said: Passenger demand remained robust in most key markets during May, and the increase in passenger numbers easily outpaced the growth in capacity. Demand out of the key Hong Kong market was strong, buoyed by the public holidays at the beginning of the month. We entered the traditional slack season for Australia and New Zealand but Japan remained hugely popular as a leisure destination and we saw high loads in the Economy cabin on many other routes. A higher proportion of connecting traffic and lower-than-expected premium traffic on long-haul routes both had a negative impact on yield.

Cathay Pacific General Manager Cargo Sales & Marketing Mark Sutch said: Our cargo business got off to a slow start in May due to the long public holiday in Mainland China at the beginning of the month. Demand picked up steadily as factories reopened but the months tonnage growth could not keep pace with the increase in capacity. Our Mainland business continued to face pressure from intense competition and we saw less benefit from the congestion in the seaports on the West Coast of the USA than in previous months. Demand into and out of the Indian subcontinent was one of the bright spots in our cargo network in May.