Cathay Pacific Airways today released combined Cathay Pacific and Dragonair traffic figures for January 2008 that show year-on-year growth in passenger and cargo numbers, though cargo tonnage growth continued to lag behind the increase in capacity.

In January, the two airlines carried a total of 2,043,424 passengers - a rise of 17.8% on the same month in 2007, while capacity, measured in available seat kilometres (ASKs), rose by 10.2%. The month's load factor climbed by 5.3 percentage points to 82.3%.

Cathay Pacific and Dragonair between them carried 136,614 tonnes of freight in January - a rise of 9.0% year on year, while the cargo and mail load factor rose 1.4 points to 63.6%. Cargo capacity, measured in available cargo/mail tonne kilometres, was up 10.2% for the month.

Cathay Pacific General Manager Revenue Management, Sales & Distribution Ian Shiu said: "The passenger figures for January are very encouraging, especially considering the month was sandwiched between two major holiday peaks. Bookings remained buoyant over Chinese New Year and we expect loads to stay strong right through to the Easter peak in late March."

Cathay Pacific Director & General Manager Cargo Ron Mathison said: "Our cargo performance in January was satisfactory, though the pre-Chinese New Year rush was not as pronounced as in previous years. We expect the market to be generally slower in February, though we look forward to the cargo opportunities presented when we begin expanding our passenger services to India at the end of the month."