Hong Kong's Cathay Pacific Dec passenger traffic up 5.9 pct on yr; FY up 8.4 pct |
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Published
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Wed, 10 Jan 2007 11:31
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HONG KONG (XFN-ASIA) - Cathay Pacific Airways said it carried 1.49 mln passengers in December, up 5.9 pct from a year earlier, bringing to 16.73 mln the number of passengers carried by the airline in 2006.The airline said in a statement that the number of passengers it served last year was 8.4 pct more than that in 2005.Ian Shiu, Cathay Pacific's general manager for revenue management, sales and distribution, attributed the growth to increased business travel.'For the year as a whole we saw... passenger numbers staying ahead of capacity growth, with strong corporate demand helping to buoy yield,' he said.He said December was a good month, with business particularly strong over the Christmas holiday period.Cathay's December passenger load factor stood at 81.2 pct, one percentage point higher from a year ago.For the full year 2006, the passenger load factor was 79.9 pct.In December the airline carried 108,842 tons of cargo, a rise of 3.7 pct over the same month in 2005..There was no growth in the cargo load factor during the month.For the full year 2006, the cargo load factor was up 1.3 percentage points at 68.3 pct, while the amount of freight carried rose by 7.2 pct to 1.20 mln tons.It said cargo 'capacity growth lagged behind at 5.2 pct.'Ron Mathison, Cathay Pacific's director and general manager for cargo said its long-haul services to North America and Europe continued to do well but yields are under pressure in the face of competition from other regional hubs.'We are also seeing an increasing shift of air cargo to marine, particularly out of Japan and Korea, as a result of high fuel prices,' he said.He said the recent launch of a twice-weekly Beijing freighter service and flights to Shanghai has helped boost cargo capacity.leonora.walet@xfn.comlw/rc
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