Global air freight markets stabilized in August after two months of decline, the latest monthly figures from IATA show, but yields are still falling, according to market researchers.
Measured in Freight Tonne Kilometres, air cargo volumes rose 0.2% compared to the same month a year ago. This was a modest improvement on July performance when freight demand contracted by 0.6% year-over-year, the airline association noted.
“After declines in June and July, signs of a stabilization in air cargo are welcome. But all is not well. Total volumes are down 2% compared to the end of 2014,” said Tony Tyler, IATA’s Director General and CEO.
"And some of the key reasons for the earlier weakness – for example, downgraded growth expectations in emerging Asia, and the rebalancing of the Chinese economy toward domestic consumption are still there. Even though world trade volumes have slightly picked up, the industry will have to work hard to match the strong finish to 2014.”
The results varied widely by region. Carriers in the Middle East reported the most significant growth (10.4%) followed by African (2.3%) and European airlines (0.7%). The most significant negative impact on the global performance was by Asia-Pacific based airlines (-1.0%); and those in North America (-3.3%) and Latin America (-7.3%). All regions reported capacity expansions ahead of growth in demand.
Meanwhile, the latest analysis from market data specialist, WorldACD, underlines that the story of air cargo so far in 2015 continues to be one of stagnant volumes and falling yields.
August showed a year-over-year (YoY) volume increase of 0.9%, whilst month-over-month (MoM) US$ yields fell again, this time by 1.2% Yields in August 2014 had decreased by 0.8% vs July 2014, it reveals.
"Africa and Latin America, the smaller regions in terms of air cargo, bucked the trend, however: Africa was clearly the region-of-the-month, showing a volume increase in air exports of almost 10% YoY coupled with a MoM yield drop of 0.2% only," WorldACD said.
Latin America was in the news, positively, for the first time in many months. It saw MoM yields increase by 3.5% for outgoing and by 1% for incoming traffic. However, it was one of two regions recording a (small) negative volume growth YoY, the other being North America.
"Falling yields ought to be good news for shippers and forwarders, yet they seem to take the view that – given the present low fuel cost – prices are not coming down fast enough. Airlines may well take a different view, namely that the worldwide $-yield drop of 18% over the past year properly reflects the lower fuel cost,” WorldACD argued.
"Whatever the case, airlines must have welcomed the small MoM $-yield increase in August in more than half of the inter-regional markets: from Africa to Asia Pacific, Latin America and Europe; from Latin America to virtually all destination regions; from Europe to Africa and Latin America; from the Middle East & South Asia (MESA) to Asia Pacific; and from North America to all destinations except MESA and Africa," it added.
