Cathay Pacific Airways released traffic figures for November 2003 that show continued strong demand in the passenger market and a month of near-record tonnage for cargo.

In November the airline carried 1,002,040 passengers, down slightly from the 1,017,884 passengers carried in October but a rise of 0.9 percent year-on-year. The average passenger load factor for the month was 74.4 percent, a rise of 1 percentage point on November 2002. This increase in load factor comes despite the airline increasing the number of flights by 2.7 percent over the same period last year.

The freight market remained buoyant in November and Cathay Pacific carried 86,673 tonnes of cargo – down on the record 87,275 tonnes carried in October but an increase of 3.5 percent over November 2002.

Cathay Pacific General Manager Revenue Management, Sales & Distribution Ian Shiu said: “November is usually quieter than October on the passenger side so we didn’t reach the highs of the previous month. However, demand remained buoyant for both business and leisure traffic and there were encouraging yield trends, mainly due to healthy front-end demand but also because of a higher ratio of independent travellers to group traffic.”

Cathay Pacific General Manager Cargo Kenny Tang said: “The fourth quarter is traditionally busy in the air cargo business and the tonnage carried in November was not far off the highs of the previous month. Growth in November was mainly driven by exports out of Hong Kong and we ran a number of additional freighter flights to Europe to meet demand. Business was also buoyed by special charter flights arranged to carry shipments of Beaujolais wine from France to Japan.”