HONG KONG: Cathay Pacific Airways Ltd, Hong Kong's flag carrier, said yesterday passenger numbers fell over 18 percent last month from a year ago as the negative impact of the global recession continued to hurt the travel sector.

The carrier also blamed the influenza A(H1N1) outbreak for the sharp drop in business.

Cathay Pacific and its Hong Kong Dragon Airlines Ltd unit carried a total of 1.74 million passengers in June, down 18.1 percent from the same period of last year.

Load factor - the ratio of revenue passenger miles over available seat miles - fell by 4.5 percentage points to 76.8 percent.

A Cathay Pacific Airways passenger plane is seen parked at the Hong Kong International Airport earlier this month. Bloomberg News

Capacity for the month, measured in available seat kilometers (ASKs), was down 9.1 percent.

For the first six months, the number of passengers carried has fallen 4.2 percent while capacity has declined by 2.1 percent.

The two airlines carried a total of 123,860 tons of cargo and mail last month, down 10.0 percent from the same month last year.

In June, the cargo and mail load factor rose by 3.8 percentage points to 71.3 percent as capacity - measured in available cargo/mail ton kilometers - was down by 14.3 percent from a year ago.

For the six months to June, total tonnage has fallen by 15.4 percent year-on-year compared to a capacity drop of 14.1 percent.

"We usually see a pickup in demand in June as summer approaches, but this year demand was depressed by the ongoing global economic recession and the reluctance of passengers to fly as a result of the widely reported H1N1 outbreak," Tom Owen, the airlines' general manager in revenue management, said in the statement.

The H1N1 situation had a particularly severe impact in Cathay's largest market, Hong Kong, and within the region, especially on Japanese routes, he said.

"Premium cabin demand showed no signs of life but was at least stable," he said.

"Aggressive competition for economy class passengers in all markets continued to provide very few opportunities for sustainable yield improvement," he added.

In May, the company reported a 7.5 percent year-on-year drop in passengers and a 13.3 percent fall in cargo.

China Daily - Bloomberg News

(HK Edition 07/14/2009 page4)