Cathay Pacific Airways today released combined Cathay Pacific and Cathay Dragon traffic figures for October 2017 that show an increase in both the number of passengers carried and cargo and mail uplifted compared to the same month in 2016.

Cathay Pacific and Cathay Dragon carried a total of 2,924,762 passengers last month - an increase of 6.0% compared to October 2016. The passenger load factor dropped 0.2 percentage points to 81.3%, while capacity, measured in available seat kilometres (ASKs), increased by 4.6%. In the first ten months of 2017, the number of passenger carried increased by 0.7% while capacity rose by 2.3%.

The two airlines carried 180,706 tonnes of cargo and mail last month, an increase of 4.8% compared to the same month last year. The cargo and mail load factor rose by 1.2 percentage points to 69.3%. Capacity, measured in available cargo/mail tonne kilometres, was up by 2.4% while cargo and mail revenue tonne kilometres (RTKs) increased by 4.2%. In the first ten months of 2017, the tonnage rose by 10.8% against a 3.1% increase in capacity and an 8.7% increase in RTKs.

Cathay Pacific Director Commercial and Cargo Ronald Lam said: "Our performance in the first half of the month was boosted by an increase in leisure travel demand around a number of public holidays in the region, including National Day and the Mid-Autumn Festival, from our key sales territories of mainland China, Korea and Taiwan. Premium traffic maintained its momentum across most of the network, achieving good growth on the back of strong demand and additional capacity, although long-haul yield continues to come under pressure from intense competition.

"Our cargo business enjoyed a strong month and we broke our weekly tonnage uplift record during the week ending 21 October. Stepping into the traditional peak period, demand for new IT products and perishables was robust. We deployed additional freighter capacity on transpacific, India and mainland China routes, while our load factor and yields continued to climb. October also marked an important milestone for our Pharma LIFT business - along with our wholly-owned subsidiaries Cathay Pacific Services Limited and Hong Kong Airport Services Limited, the airline was awarded CEIV Pharma Certification in recognition of our capability in handling high value and time- sensitive pharmaceutical products."

Contributed by Cathay Pacific