The first global airport figures for 2011 confirm that air freight iscontinuing to build on last year’s recovery, with 6.8% year-on-year growth in January.
The figures, published today by Airports Council International (ACI), areroughly in line with those for November and December 2010, and broadly reflect the expectations ofindustry analysts, who predicted a return to stable growth this year of around 5-6%, following theextraordinary, recovery-based growth of 20% last year.
International air freight volumes were up by 8.3%, with domestic growthtrailing at 4.5%. The cargo figures also mirror the growth patterns seen in the passenger airlinesector, driven by continued strong growth in Asia Pacific and Europe. Asia Pacific’s internationalair freight volumes rose by 9%, and the region’s domestic volumes were up by 12%, while Europe’sinternational freight volumes grew 11.4% year-on-year.
Africa topped the international growth list, with 19.6% growth, althoughthe market is a fraction of the size of the European and Asian markets. Latin America saw thestrongest increase in domestic traffic (+16%), whereas the largest domestic market, North America,remained flat (-0.8%).
The ACI figures are also broadly in line with those published on Monday byairline association IATA, which reported international air freight growth in January of 9.1%,following year-on-year growth of 7.3% in December and 6.9% in November. IATA said air freightvolumes in January were 39% above the low point reached at the end of 2009 and around 6% above thepre-recession peak of early 2008.
This week, IATA revised upwards its 2011 air cargo growth forecast to 6.1%– up from 5.5% – in response to improved GDP expectations. It also said that freight load factorsare currently “high compared to previous cyclical peaks”, and that these tightening supply anddemand conditions give scope for price increases by airlines. It estimated that cargo ‘yields’ –the revenue per unit of cargo achieved by airlines – are now expected to rise 1.9% this year – upfrom its previous forecast of no yield growth.
Recent rises in oil prices are also expected to translate intosignificantly higher air freight fuel surcharges.
