Air freight volume growth continued to slow down in September following lower growth rates inAugust and July, according to the latest monthly figures from airports association ACI.
In September, international freight grew 14.1%, down from 19% in August and dramatically downfrom its 35% peak rise in May. These figures partly reflect comparison with improving figures inthe last few months of 2009.
Overall freight tonnage at the world’s leading cargo airports grew 11.5% in September, down froma 15.1% rise in August. This is a considerable drop compared to the peak in May with an increase of28%. On a quarterly basis, freight grew by 15% in the third quarter contrasting quite strongly withgrowth of 24% in the first two quarters.
The rolling 12-month figure, covering October 2009 to September 2010, showed an 18.4% rise.Domestic freight tonnage rose worldwide by just 4.9% as compared to a January through Septemberincrease of 10%. This shows that the slowdown is slightly more pronounced in the domestic sectorthan on the international level.
All world regions showed lower growth in September compared to August. Asia Pacific and MiddleEast airports, which had shown stronger growth than other regions over the last few months,delivered the weakest performance in September. Middle East showed the lowest growth with a 6.3%rise in total and international freight, down from 10.6% growth in August. Asia recorded a slightlybetter result with 9.5% for total freight and 12.3% in international freight.
North American and African airports slightly outperformed Asia Pacific with a 10.3% increase ininternational traffic for both regions. On the international level, Africa kept the same growth at10.3% surpassed by international volumes of North America at 19%. Europe recorded the highestoverall freight increase with 18.1%, followed by Latin America with 15.8%. International freightvolumes showed similar growth with 17.2% in Europe and 16.7% in Latin America.
In terms of passenger traffic, airports worldwide registered in September the best monthlyresult so far in 2010 with a total growth of 9%, down from 5.6% in August, bringing total globaltraffic growth for the first nine months of the year to 6.5%. Performance was strong in all regionsled by the Middle East (+20%) and followed by Latin America Caribbean (+15.5%), ACI reported.
