* Passenger numbers helped by South Africa World Cup
* Cargo haulage drops 7 percent
NAIROBI, Oct 29 (Reuters) - Kenya Airways said passenger volumes rose in its second quarter ended September as the World Cup in South Africa and route expansion lifted performance, helping push its shares higher.
The airline, one of the top carriers in the continent, said on Friday passenger numbers were up 9 percent to 849,566 over the same period in 2009.
"Uptake of total production at 2,466 million revenue passenger kilometres represents a 10 percent growth ... The resulting average cabin factor improved from last year's level of 70 percent to 73 percent," Kenya Airways said in a statement.
"The highest seat kilometre increase was registered in the Southern Africa region which was at 26.3 percent growth. This was due to additional frequencies into Johannesburg during the World Cup, Harare and Lusaka together with the additions of Ndola and Gaborone into the network."
At 1254 GMT, Kenya Airways shares changed hands at 44.75 shillings, up 2.29 percent from Thursday's close and the third highest climber in the benchmark index of 20 Kenyan companies.
"Of course I would expect the price to go up," said Samuel Gichohi, investment analyst at Suntra Investment Bank, adding that passenger volumes were also helped by the numerous international conferences Kenya has hosted in recent months.
Kenya Airways said the number of passengers it ferried to Europe was up 14 percent to 142,567.
However, the airline, which is 26 percent owned by Air France-KLM, said cargo haulage fell 7 percent to 14,118 tonnes, because of strained capacity.
The airline said earlier this month it expected to carry 3 million passengers and 60,000 tonnes of cargo in its year ending next March, thanks to expansion of its routes in Africa and the Middle East. (Reporting by George Obulutsa; Editing by David Clarke and Jon Loades-Carter)