A solid rise in Cathay Pacific Group’s June passenger numbers has been tempered by the impact of intense competition on long-haul routes and weakening cargo markets. The airline’s June figures showed passenger numbers on Cathay Pacific and Cathay Dragon increased 6 percent in June compared to a year ago to top 3.1 million. The group passenger load factor in June rose 1.4 percentage points to  86.7 percent compared to June 2018  but remained flat for the first six months of the year. Cargo tonnage slumped 9.1 percent to 163, 977 tonnes in June as the cargo and mail revenue load factor fell by 7.8 percentage points to 62.8 percent. Tonnage was down 5.7 percent for the first half of the year. READ: why American Airlines needs to lift its customer service. “Passenger demand remained robust for both business and leisure travel in June, with first and business class load factor reaching its highest level over a decade,’’ Cathay Pacific director commercial and cargo Ronald Lim said. “However, intense market competition continued to exert pressure on yield. Long-haul regions such as North America and Europe performed behind expectations, particularly on the yield front. “Such pressure on yield is expected to continue in the coming months.’’ Lim said that weakening market sentiment and impacted both tonnage uplift and yield. “ With the exception of the Americas, Northeast Asia and mainland China, which had a marginal increase in uplift compared to May, overall volume has seen decline against the previous month and year, with only a short-lived recovery from Asia towards the latter half of June,’’ he said. “ The outlook for the coming months has not seen signs of volume rebound. We shall further our efforts to maintain a healthy market share by working closely with our forwarders and shippers, and further rationalize our freighter capacity to better match demand.” The figures came as the airline opened its newly renovated lounge at Shanghai Pudong International Airport.