Air China January passenger capacity up 6.6%

Yet cargo capacity fell by 6.8% and Revenue Freighter Tonne Kilometres down 25.9%.

During January 2012, driven by travel demand during the Spring Festival, international, domestic and regional routes have shown a year-over-year and month-over-month growth in passenger traffic and the number of passengers carried. As for cargo, decreases continued in both Revenue Freighter Tonne Kilometres (RFTK) and freighter tonnage carried.

Passenger capacity, measured in Available Seat Kilometres (ASK), in January notched a respectable rise of 6.6% year-over-year while passenger traffic, measured by Revenue Passenger Kilometres (RPK), also climbed by 8.1%. Capacity on domestic routes increased by 6.4%, while RPK climbed 8.4% year-over-year. Capacity on international routes grew 5.8%, with RPK increasing by 6.4%. Capacity on regional routes strongly expanded by 19.5%, while RPK rose by an even more vigourous 22%.

The passenger load factor was 79.7%, an increase of 1.1 percentage points year-over-year. The passenger load factor for domestic routes, international routes and regional routes also increased by 1.5, 0.4 and 1.6 percentage points respectively. Cargo capacity, measured in Available Freighter Tonne Kilometres (AFTK), also shrunk by 6.8% year-over-year in January. Revenue Freighter Tonne Kilometres (RFTK) decreased by 25.9%, and freighter tonnage carried declined by 28.5%, compared with January 2011. The cargo load factor was 46.8%, a drop of 12 percentage points year-over-year, according to an Air China report.

Air China launched Dalian-Taiyuan-Sanya route (seven flights a week) starting 1 January; Tianjin-Harbin route (seven flights a week) on 4 January; and Beijing-Okinawa route (two flights a week) commencing 11 January.