Cathay Pacific Airways posted an 8.2% fall in passenger traffic in July with traffic from North America the most adversely affected.
The Oneworld carrier says RPKs in July dropped 8.2% year-on-year and it cut ASKs by 7.5% so the passenger load factor fell 0.6 percentage points to 83.5%.
In real terms the number of passengers fell 9.9% year-on-year to 2.08 million with North America the most adversely affected, down 21.9% to 1.92 million.
"The adverse impact of influenza A H1N1 on regional demand continued in July although there was a pickup in leisure travel towards the end of the month as concerns eased in some markets," says Cathay Pacific general manager revenue management Tom Owen.
"Load factors remained flat over last year despite significantly reduced capacity, highlighting the continued impact of the global economic downturn on demand."
"Bookings in the premium cabins remained especially weak which combined with ongoing aggressive economy class competition and adverse currency movements continued to stymie any material yield recovery," he adds.
In terms of freight, cargo and mail tonne kilometres fell 3.7%, it says.
Cathay Pacific general manager cargo sales and marketing, Titus Diu, says: "Our tonnage decline has seen successive reductions since the beginning of the year and July's drop of 6.7% was the smallest year-on-year monthly drop so far in 2009."
"The indications now are that the massive slide in the air cargo market has bottomed out and we were encouraged to see an increase in demand" out of Hong Kong.
But "intense competition is still putting yield under considerable pressure," he adds.
Cathay's operating statistics also include that of its subsidiary Dragonair.
Source: Air Transport Intelligence news
