Cathay Pacific: Cargo situation 'still quite fragile'

Cathay Pacific, in the Sep-2012 edition of CX World Magazine, noted (Sep-2012) autumn also is also usually the beginning of the cargo peak and there are "hopes that markets will begin to pick up after a slump lasting 16 months". "September will be a better month, particularly transpacific and intra-Asia, as a number of new hi-tech products are being launched," said general manager cargo sales and marketing James Woodrow. "We should also see a stronger market in October following the China National Day holidays, with more new products in the pipeline, but overall the situation is still quite fragile," he added. Mr Woodrow said demand will likely improve out of all the key manufacturing points in the Mainland - the Pearl River Delta, Yangtze River Delta and Western/Central China - in Sep/Oct-2012. "Chongqing and Chengdu are both operating at three or four freighters a week now, and we recently bumped Zhengzhou up to six flights a week to connect hi-tech products through Hong Kong to our global network." In terms of capacity, Cathay Pacific will continue to try to match freighter supply in line with peaks and troughs in demand. "We have reduced our weekly freighter schedule to Europe though we have an excellent service to and from the continent in our passenger bellies - and as more 777s are used to Europe there is more cargo space available for our sales team to sell," Mr Woodrow noted. [more - original PR]