International air freight will grow by a moderate 3.2 per cent a year over the next five years withthe positive impact of world economic and trade growth counterbalanced by trends such as
near-shoring, according to detailed new medium-term forecasts by the International Air TransportAssociation (IATA).Other key trends will be the continued rise of China, overtaking Germany as the world’ssecond-largest market, strong growth in emerging markets such as the UAE, Brazil, Africa andVietnam, and more intra-regional flows, the Airline Industry Forecast 2013-2017 said.
“Air cargo is a key enabler for the movement of high value products and perishable goodsaround the globe. More than $6 trillion worth of goods is air freighted annually, accounting foraround 35 per cent of total world trade,” said Tony Tyler, IATA’s Director General and CEO.
“But more recently, the relationship between international trade and GDP has broken downowing to rising trade barriers and ‘on-shoring’ of production. The successful conclusion of theWorld Trade Organization talks in Bali potentially could be very important in kick-starting tradegrowth. To be ready to take best advantage of possible opportunities, air cargo needs to worktogether as an industry to improve its competitiveness and enhance the quality of its service tocustomers,” he urged.
IATA said that international freight volumes are expected to grow 17 per cent over the nextfive years, representing a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 3.2 per cent. “This consensusoutlook incorporates a conservative estimate of the recovery in global economic activity and worldtrade volumes over the coming years,” the airline association pointed out.
The largest and the third-largest air freight markets – the USA and China – are likely to addmore than one million additional tonnes each over the forecast period. As a result, China willsupplant Germany as the second largest air freight market in 2017, the forecast said. Hong Kong andthe United Arab Emirates will both contribute more than 700,000 tonnes each to the additionalfreight volume during the five-year period until 2017, putting them in fourth and fifth places.
Emerging markets will remain the main growth drivers over the five-year period. Africa isforecast to be the fastest-growing region with a growth rate of 4.0 per cent CAGR, with theinter-Africa market (5.3 per cent) as the top growth market. The Middle East and Latin America areboth expected to grow by 3.8 per cent a year, slightly ahead of the largest regional market,Asia-Pacific, with 3.5 per cent per annum growth. Europe and North America follow at 2.4 per centCAGR and 2.7 per cent CAGR, respectively.
In terms of individual countries, Vietnam is expected to be the fastest growing country forair freight volumes over the forecasting horizon with a CAGR of 6.6 per cent per annum, followed byBangladesh (5.7 per cent CAGR), Brazil (5.5 per cent CAGR), Ethiopia (5.3 per cent CAGR) and Peru(5.2 per cent CAGR).
The growth of intra-regional air freight flows will increase, according to the IATA study.Traffic within Asia Pacific will increase its share of the total market, rising from 25.3 per centlast year to 26.2 per cent. Intra-regional growth in Asia will be about a third of the total worldincrease over the period.
The other main trade lanes, Europe-Asia Pacific (12.1 per cent), North and Mid-Pacific (10.5per cent) and North Atlantic (10.1 per cent), will see their market shares drop slightly as willintra-Europe and intra-North Atlantic.
There will be smaller gains (of around 0.3 percentage points) in both North America-LatinAmerica (to 6.6 per cent) and Middle East-Asia Pacific (to 6.5 per cent), according to the study.
The estimated imbalance in annual freight traffic flows from Asia to North America isexpected to reach 1.1 million tonnes in 2017, IATA noted.
