Perret then outlined the challenges for the industry arising from the conflict in the Middle East. This was affecting global capacity, with Cathay Cargo’s routes to the Middle East and Europe impacted. A more significant challenge was the unprecedented rise in the price of aviation fuel, which was driven by the steep increase in both the price of crude oil and the refinery costs or “crack” - the two main cost components of jet fuel. He explained that Cathay Cargo’s key goal through this period was to maintain its network and schedule as far as possible. “That’s really important for the Hong Kong aviation hub and for freight forwarders and shippers we partner with,” he said. He went on to explain that fuel surcharges were an important mechanism for airlines to mitigate and recover a portion of the incremental fuel costs and for Cathay Cargo to achieve this goal.

Hong Kong is still number one

In the same week as the event, Airports Council International ranked Hong Kong as the world’s busiest air cargo hub in 2025, an accolade it has achieved 15 times since 2010, with 5.07 million tonnes of cargo throughput. Cathay Cargo contributed the largest share of this, at 1.68 million tonnes. Perret added his own thanks to the home hub. “If you’re in this industry, in this business, there’s no better place to be based,” he said, as he outlined the new intermodal connections between Hong Kong and Cathay’s extended home hub of the wider Greater Bay Area.

New growth areas

Perret also discussed a number of exciting growth areas for Cathay Cargo. Foremost among these was South East Asia, where investments in manufacturing capabilities across the region had driven growing demand for air cargo over a number of years. Cathay Cargo has responded to this by adding significant capacity to the region and would continue to do so. “We’ll be launching freighters to Bangkok in May, which we’re excited about. Because Bangkok will be tagged with Ho Chi Minh City, this will also add another 40 tonnes of additional capacity per week for Hanoi,” he said. South Asia was highlighted as another region with high potential given the developing e-commerce and manufacturing landscape.

Perret also highlighted the growing importance of high-value technology products to Cathay Cargo’s business, driven by demand for components critical to the booming AI and data-centre industry – such a semiconductors and server racks. “With an estimated 60 per cent of semiconductors manufactured in Taiwan, China and with other key high-value tech products made in the Chinese Mainland, Japan and Korea, this is another great opportunity for us,” he concluded.

The McKinsey picture

Ahead of lunch, Senior Partner Sal Arora and David MacMillan, Partner at McKinsey’s Transport, Logistics and Infrastructure Practice in Hong Kong, shared their perspective on the air cargo market.

Despite the challenges of the past year, they reported overall growth in global trade in 2025, while air cargo’s speed and agility enabled it to benefit from market turbulence. This was on top of underlying factors such as the continued growth of the Chinese Mainland, alongside capacity constraints from the slowdown in freighter production. They also observed that global trade flows had shifted: where trade once largely took place between countries that are close to each-other for logistical reasons, “countries are now trading with countries that are geopolitically aligned, so distance of actual freight movements is increasing, which is good for all of us.”

Offsetting this, McKinsey cautioned, that there were headwinds from ongoing geopolitical disruption and structural shifts within air cargo, including the move away from automotive towards e-commerce and higher-value goods. These, though, were dwarfed by the industry’s slow pace of digitalisation and innovation.

According to their data, travel, transport and logistics ranks as the fourth-largest sector in terms of potential productivity gains from adopting generative AI, worth more than US$140 billion globally. Both Arora and MacMillan encouraged guests beginning their AI journey to think big, and rather than experiment with small use cases, implement AI across entire business domains like sales or commercial – reminding delegates that “for every US$1 invested in technology development, plan another US$1 or more to realise the value.”

Sweet Caroline, then sweet chariots…

After the business session, it was time for the traditional toast, with Perret leading the room in a rendition of the now-iconic song Sweet Caroline, before guests turned their attention to a memorable sporting weekend.