Dragonair's year on year growth continues

Dragonair started the new year by recording double-digit year-on-year rises in both passenger numbers and cargo carried, reflecting capacity increases at the airline over the past 12 months.

The number of passengers flying with the airline in January, 280,980, was up 43.21% over the same month in 2002.

"Lunar New Year holiday traffic drove much of the travel during the month, with either business people flying home to be with their family or  holiday-makers looking to take advantage of the break," said Stanley Hui, Chief Executive Officer of Dragonair. "However, the strong trend for business travel that we have been seeing over the past few months also continued to be apparent."

He continued: "To meet the extra demand over the holiday period we added a record number of additional sectors and capacity upgrades to the most  popular destinations, which included Shanghai, Taipei and Phuket."

The amount of cargo carried by the airline in January surged 65.87% on a  year-on-year basis. The airline carried a total of 18,262 tonnes in the month.

"Following the busy period at the end of the year we now seasonally see somewhat slower demand," Mr. Hui said. "However, there was a surge in the  last week of January, as companies rushed out shipments ahead of the Lunar New Year."

He added: "Exports from the mainland, Hong Kong and Taiwan remained  very strong during the month, while imports into the mainland were also robust."

Despite the positive figures, Mr. Hui noted: "We continue to watch costs carefully, but the price of fuel remains a concern."

Dragonair is a Hong Kong-based airline, operating a fleet of nine A330-300s,  four A321s and eight A320s, in addition to three Boeing 747-300 freighters. The airline's passenger network covers 28 destinations across the Asia-Pacific region, while its cargo network connects the markets of Europe,  the Middle East, Japan, Taiwan and China Mainland.