Air Transport

Cathay Pacific Airways'September traffic remained virtually flat as passenger numbers fell from a year before.

RPKs rose by 0.1%in September, while the actual passenger numbers carried fell 2% to 1.8 million passengers, says the Oneworld alliance member.ASKs fell 9.7%, while the passenger load factor rose 7.9 percentage points to 80.2%.

"September saw a welcome seasonal upturn in demand for premium traffic with an improved share of the overall business, but at volumes and yields still well below previous years," says Cathay's GM for revenue management Tom Owen.

"Several special events including Indonesian Lebaran and the Japanese silver week holidays helped boost regional leisure demand for the month. Reduced capacity, especially on some long haul routes, provided the context for the higher load factors and improved efficiency levels on several routes compared to the recent past."

Cathay Pacific carried 133,301 tonnes of cargo in September, down 5.8% year-on-year. Cargo tonne kilometres fell 3.3% to 714,564 tonnes.

Cathay Pacific's operating statistics also include that of subsidiary Dragonair.