Air cargo traffic around the world dropped back 4% in May in a further sign of lower thanexpected growth this year, IATA said today.
International air cargo traffic, measured in freight-tonne-kilometres (FTKs), declined 4.3%compared to May 2010 while domestic traffic was 2.3% lower year-on-year. This left overall volumes4% lower than 12 months ago. With overall available capacity up 2.8% last month, load factors alsodropped back.
Over the first five months of 2011, overall air cargo traffic was 2% higher than in 2010, withinternational up 2.6% and domestic down 2.1%. Available capacity rose 6.8% between January and May,according to the IATA figures.
IATA said that the 4% drop in May was skewed as a result of the May 2010 peak for thepost-recession restocking cycle. However, the 2% growth so far this year was lower than the 5.5%forecast for 2011, it noted. “While the continued expansion of world trade at around 6% annuallycould lend support to accelerated freight growth in the second half of 2011, the performance so farthis year has been lower than expected,” the airline association commented.
Carriers in all regions except Latin America (+1.5%) and the Middle East (+8.1%) saw air freightdeclines compared to May 2010. The largest fall was for Asia-Pacific carriers with a 9.2% dropshowing the impact of disrupted supply chains in Japan and tighter economic policies in China.Declines by African carriers (-7.8%) reflected the disruption in Egypt and Tunisia. European andNorth American carriers had modest falls of 2.2% and 1.4% respectively.
“We saw positive developments for the air transport volumes in May. Freight volumes improved by1.2% over April and passenger volumes were up by 1.8%. These will help to alleviate some of thepressure on profits from continued high fuel prices,” said Giovanni Bisignani, IATA’s outgoingDirector General and CEO.
“But there are risks associated with political unrest in the Middle East and the Europeancurrency crisis. We still expect the industry to make $4 billion this year. That is a pathetic 0.7%margin and another shock could alter the industry’s fortunes dramatically. It’s another tough yearfor a very fragile industry,” said Bisignani.
