Dragonair traffic numbers continue growth in October

New records were set for both Dragonair passengers and cargo in October 2004. The airline also saw a new daily record set, when 19,242 passengers travelled on October 24.

A total of 451,644 people flew throughout the Dragonair network in the month, up 8.7% on September.

“The month started off slowly due to less inbound traffic to Mainland cities during the National Day holidays, but picked up quickly thereafter, bolstered by strong business and leisure traffic,” explained Dragonair CEO Stanley Hui.

“Significantly, we also saw greater demand from individual travellers in the Mainland, which has positive implications for future growth. It is over a year since the Individual Travel Scheme was launched, and the benefits are now gradually coming through.”

For the fourth month in a row, cargo also set a new record for the airline.

“Our cargo operation is performing exceptionally well, and we continue to build on that,” Mr. Hui said. “We will be adding three new all-cargo flights to the busy cargo hub of Shanghai to capitalise on the demand to and from there. The timing is good given that we are in the busy pre-Christmas peak, so we are expecting this month’s record to be broken sooner rather than later.”

He added: “As anticipated, oil prices remained at high levels during the month. Fuel costs accounted for 22% of our total costs in October, up from 8% two to three years ago. This is consistently putting heavy pressure on our bottom line despite the good operational numbers.”

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