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Hactl stays bullish on cargo volumes

Hong Kong Air Cargo Terminals said its tonnage throughput for the year would likely end only about 5 per cent below a 'bumper' 2010, despite a heavy fall in cargo volume in the past two months.

Air cargo throughput was also expected to fall year-on-year this month, managing director Mark Whitehead said, although he expected a strong turnaround during the second half of the year would mitigate the impact.

'2011 is not a bad year, it's just not a bumper year,' Whitehead said. 'The throughput of April, May and June last year was not normal - every month you beat the record of the earlier one.'

The city's largest cargo handler processed 227,050 tonnes of cargo in May, down 12 per cent from a year ago. In April the year-on-year decrease was 9.3 per cent.

While Hactl handled more than 70 per cent of the total air cargo that went through the city's airport, Whitehead, who has been in the top job for nine months, said yesterday that his priorities were to maintain the company's edge and keep its clientele amid competition from both Cathay Pacific and mainland airports.

Hactl stands to lose 45 per cent of the three million tonnes of cargo it handles a year when its biggest client Cathay Pacific and Dragonair move to their own cargo terminal that will open in early 2013. The first phase of the terminal could handle an annual tonnage of 2.6 million, which will eventually grow to four million tonnes upon completion of its second phase. That is almost equal to the total cargo volume handled by the airport today.

Whitehead said Hactl was still studying ways to redeploy the surplus capacity that would emerge, including leasing some of the extra space to freight forwarders for cargo storage.

'We will have to retain our existing client base while look for new business,' Whitehead said. 'But we will not attract new business at all costs, however - that does not make sense economically.'

Five new airlines have joined Hactl this year, compared with 14 for the whole of last year.

With tough competition ahead, Whitehead called for faster progress towards building a third runway at Chek Lap Kok to avoid the airport losing its status as Asia's cargo hub.

The Airport Authority expected demand on cargo traffic to reach 5.6 million tonnes a year by 2020, but with a third runway it could go up to 7.2 million tonnes in 2025 and 8.9 million tonnes in 2030.

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