Cathay Cargo Navigates Seasonal Slowdown with Impressive Resilience

In April 2025, Cathay Cargo experienced a notable surge in cargo transport, with a 13.6 percent increase compared to teh same month last year. The available freight tonne kilometres (AFTKs) also saw an uptick of 8.9 percent, even though there was a slight dip in the load factor by 1.1 percentage points during this timeframe.

For the first four months of this year, total tonnage rose by 12.4 percent when stacked against early 2024 figures, highlighting Cathay’s strong position within the airfreight industry.

Lavinia from Cathay Cargo shared insights: “April’s tonnage was down by 10.4 percent from March due to typical seasonal trends and various holidays throughout April. Still, our specialized services continued to thrive; we noted heightened interest in our Cathay Priority service along the Asia Pacific–U.S. route as businesses prepared for upcoming trade tariffs.”

“Our cathay Expert service also saw increased demand,” she added, “thanks to strong exports of semiconductor equipment from North Asia and unexpected requests coming from Europe towards Hong Kong.”

Looking forward into May, Lavinia mentioned: “We’ve observed consistent replacement cargo flowing in from other regions like Southeast Asia during early May despite lower demand originating from Hong Kong and mainland China. We’ll keep a close eye on market shifts as we move into the latter half of the month.”