Cathay Pacific Airways today released traffic figures for October 2006 that show the airline enjoying healthy growth in passenger numbers, buoyed by the National Day holiday in Hong Kong and China. The amount of freight carried grew, but lagged behind capacity growth.

In October the airline carried a total of 1,409,626 passengers, up 7.9% on the same month in 2005. The passenger load factor was high for the time of year at 79.4%, up 3.1 percentage points year on year, while capacity, measured in available seat kilometres, was up 4.8%. In the first 10 months of the year Cathay Pacific carried 13,858,008 passengers - up 8.7% on the same period in the previous year.

The amount of cargo carried by the airline in October was 108,335 tonnes, a 4.2% rise on the same month last year. Capacity, measured in available cargo/mail tonne kilometres, rose by 8.5% over October 2005 while the cargo load factor dipped by 1.3 percentage points.

Cathay Pacific General Manager Revenue Management, Sales & Distribution Ian Shiu said: "We are encouraged by the high load factor in October and we are pleased that passenger growth kept ahead of capacity growth. Strong demand in the front end helped to keep our yield up, though competition is getting keener for back-end business."

Cathay Pacific Director & General Manager Cargo Ron Mathison said: "As expected there was a short lull after the holiday period at the start of the month but, overall, demand out of Hong Kong and China remained strong throughout October. More capacity continues to come into the market and competition is getting more intense on important regional routes such as Korea and Japan. However, we are now entering the peak season and we expect demand to remain high."

Cathay Pacific Airways
Corporate Communication Department