What is your take on 2024?

2024 turned out to be a remarkably strong year for Cathay Cargo. It was gratifying to see continued growth in our e-commerce business sustained through the entire year, which allowed us to build good base loads and help our customers with their needs. This focus on e-commerce didn’t detract from seeing tonnage growth from our special shipment solutions, some of which we refreshed last year, including Cathay Expert and Cathay Courier. It was great to see those innovations hit the market and our customers rewarded us with a significant uptick not just in volumes, but also in our customer net promoter score. Other refreshed solutions, including Cathay Fresh, Cathay Live Animal and Cathay Dangerous Goods, are coming this year.

Were there any other highlights?

One of the more satisfying things was to see our own people get behind the brand and give us some really positive results in our internal engagement surveys, because it’s our people who ultimately define our brand and make our customers happy. 

It’s also been gratifying to see the continuing digitisation of the business, with the rollout of our operational app, Cargo Connect, combined with the development of further improvements to our website and digital booking. At the moment, nearly 70 per cent of our global bookings are digital, which gives us confidence that people appreciate what we’re doing. A Manage My Booking function is in development, along with new internal systems for improving operational efficiencies.

What are your immediate thoughts on the coming year?

There are three main areas, all based around the idea that you can always rely on cargo to surprise you! It’s been our objective over the past few years to build resilience into our operations and our brand: so if things do move in a different direction, we can respond and still do well. In particular, we’re going to be looking very closely at our schedule, network optimisation and the deployment of our freighter fleet, as we don’t know how trade flows will evolve with the changing administration in the US and the other factors around the world that are currently impacting global trade. Flexibility and close attention to where we put our capacity will be key. 

What are the other areas?

Another area will be balancing our distribution with customers across the world. We want to continue to offer solutions and services to global players that need a network, and the service and operational experience that we can provide them. 

I think the third focus would be the progress we’re making with our integration with the Greater Bay Area (GBA). The operations of the Dongguan terminal are very pleasing in terms of tonnage growth over 2024 and that will continue as we start to look at special solution imports to that key region, like the evolving opportunities in terms of perishables transit into the GBA via Zhuhai and ultimately Macao.

How is the Cathay Cargo brand developing?

We want to keep expanding the reach of our brand, and we’re looking at developing more business in southern Africa and to the north in Morocco. We really believe in having a strong brand and generating consideration for freight forwarders to use us. That requires us to tell our stories, where we explain what we can do in a consistent manner, while reaching out and talking to customers directly on the back of a very strong brand. And, not to forget, enriching the meaning of our tagline: We Know How.

What will success look like in 2025?

While part of our success will be determined by financial results, it will also be determined by what our customers say about us. We’re going to continue to survey customers, using data to pinpoint where we need to improve our services and give our customers what they want. We don’t operate under the assumption that we’ve got everything right. We’ll be continuously trying to improve what we’ve already been working on around digital, distribution, brand and service. We want to see our customers continue to rate us well and recommend us to other customers. 

What are your other highlights for the next 12 months?

We are sponsoring the Longines Hong Kong International Horse Show in February, and we will be flying in around 90 horses from around the world for that. We’ll also take our exhibition stand: this is something we’ve been doing at air-cargo industry events in 2024, and it has been a great way of taking our message on the road, listening to customers and understanding changing market dynamics. 

The other important sponsorship for the year will be the Hong Kong Sevens in the spring, which will be an extraordinary event, held for the first time in the new stadium at Kai Tak Sports Park. The new venue offers more capacity for Cathay Cargo customers to come and join us. 

What’s your final note on which to start the new year?

I’d like to thank everyone for all their hard work in 2024. It’s not just our people, but also our colleagues from the wider Cathay Group, including pilots, engineers, IT people and operations teams. They’ve done a terrific job, and everyone’s pumped and excited for what 2025 will bring.