Revenue was down 0.6% to HK$1.1bn but yield increased 24.4% to HK$3.37 with record load factors of 81.4%.
The airline says that capacity limited cargo performance with available freight tonne kilometres down 31.9% due to fewer passenger aircraft flying. Total tonnage was down 17.7% to 549,000 tonnes.
Cargo demand was strong in February in the run up to Chinese New Year, remaining strong in March from Northeast Asia and the Americas, with demand from Hong Kong and China rising in the latter half of the month.
A scheduled freighter service was launched in January between Hong Kong and Riyadh to meet demand for e-commerce shipments and general cargo.
To help with the Covid-19 pandemic, Cathay Pacific Cargo flew shipments to India including oxygen generators, oxygen containers and ventilators to Delhi, Mumbai and Hyderabad. It also flew 300,000 testing kits which were a gift from the State of Oregon from Portland to Mumbai via Hong Kong.
Cathay Pacific developed a vaccine solution to move Covid-19 vaccines including its Ultra Track track-and-trace system and 24/7 monitoring from its Operations Control Centre.
The airline flew its first vaccines from Hong Kong in February including one million doses of the Sinovac vaccine from Beijing and more than a million doses of Fosun Pharma/BioNTech vaccines from Frankfurt. Vaccines have also been flown to countries including Mexico, Malaysia and Indonesia.
Cathay Pacific Cargo also took part in IATA’s One Record initiative to improve digitisation with the creation of a “Virtual Shipment Record” for all shipments, enabling data to be shared by stakeholders in the air cargo industry.