Combined Cathay Pacific and Dragonair traffic figures for October 2008 show passenger growth falling behind capacity growth, together with a significant fall in the amount of cargo and mail carried compared to the same month last year.

In October, the airlines between them carried a total of 2,091,339 passengers, up 2.6 per cent on the same month in 2007 but some way behind the 11.6 per cent growth in capacity, measured in available seat kilometres (ASKs) for the same period. The load factor for the month was down 5.3 percentage points at 75.5 per cent. For the year to date, the number of passengers carried has risen by 9.2 per cent compared to a capacity rise of 14.2 per cent.

The amount of cargo and mail carried in October dropped by 7.4 per cent to 144,466 tonnes, while the month's capacity, measured in available cargo/mail tonne kilometres, fell by 2.6 per cent compared to the same month in 2007. The cargo and mail load factor dropped by 2.9 percentage points to 65.9 per cent. For the year to date, cargo and mail tonnage has climbed by 2.4 per cent compared to a capacity rise of 2.8 per cent.

Cathay Pacific general manager - Cargo Sales and Marketing, Titus Diu said: "Usually we see a surge in our cargo business in October but this year demand was weaker than expected in most of our key markets, including Hong Kong. We saw no significant post-Olympics pickup out of China while the mini-peak anticipated after the National Day holidays in the (Chinese) mainland didn't materialise. We worked to offset weakening demand by combining freighter flights or making ad hoc cancellations where possible."