Air cargo traffic on Europe’s scheduled airlines slumped by 11.4% in November due to the impact ofthe worsening global economic climate, according to newly-released figures.
Total scheduled freight traffic dropped by 11.4% to 3,025 million FTKs (freight tonne-kms),the latest monthly figures from the Association of European Airlines (AEA) showed. The AEA, whichrepresents 35 European passenger and cargo airlines, including DHL Aviation and TNT Airways, is thefirst major international aviation organisation to release November traffic figures.
Traffic within Europe slumped 18.9% to 68.6 million FTKs, the AEA reported. Long-haul trafficwas down 11.7% to 2,852 million FTKs. This included a decline of 15% for Europe – Asia Pacificservices and a 9% fall on Europe – North Atlantic routes. The only significant growth market waslast month was Europe – Middle East with an 8% increase.
Over the first 11 months of the year, total scheduled freight on AEA member airlines was down1%, including an 8.6% fall for intra-European traffic and a 0.9% drop in long-haul traffic.
Separately, the International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO) released preliminary trafficfigures for 2008, based on statistics from 190 countries. World cargo volumes will increase only1.1% to 41.9 million tonnes this year, it forecast. This is a sharp decrease on the 3.9% growthachieved in 2007.
