World air cargo up 5.2% in February but underlying trend still negative

Worldwide air cargo traffic grew by 5.2% in February but the underlying trend, excluding theeffects of this year’s earlier Chinese New Year, remained negative with a 1.5% drop over the first

Air cargo demand was subject to positive distortion by the occurrence of Chinese New Year inJanuary which pushed some deliveries into February as well as the year-on-year comparison withFebruary 2011 when demand was weakened by the effects of the Arab spring. However, measuredmonth-on-month, air freight volumes were 1.2% lower than January’s traffic levels, withinternational volumes down by 1.9%, IATA noted.

Nevertheless, freight demand continued to be relatively stable, a trend that started to developin September 2011, and is consistent with improvements in business confidence, although the outlookremains uncertain, the airline association commented.

The 5.2% traffic growth in February came on top of a 6.9% rise in available capacity, whichpushed the airline industry’s average freight load factor down to 44.8%. International trafficincreased 5.1% on a 7.7% capacity rise, leaving the freight load factor at 50%, while domestictraffic was 5.7% higher, with capacity up by only 4.1%.

Over the first two months of 2012, thus neutralising the effect of the earlier Chinese New Year,total traffic declined by 1.5% but capacity was 2.9% higher, pushing the freight load factor downto 43%. International traffic fell 1.6% on a 3.1% capacity rise, leaving the load factor at 47.8%.Domestic was down 0.4% with a 2.2% capacity increase, further reducing the load factor to just26.2%.

“The outlook is fragile. Improvements in business confidence slowed in February. This will limitthe potential for business class travel growth and it implies that an uptick for cargo is notimminent. At the same time, airlines trying to recoup rising fuel costs could risk reduced volumeson price sensitive market segments. Weak economic conditions and rising fuel costs are adouble-whammy that an industry anticipating a 0.5% margin can ill-afford,” said Tony Tyler, IATA’sDirector General and CEO.

In regional terms, February’s cargo growth was led by Middle East carriers with an 18.2%increase in demand which was matched exactly with an 18.2% increase in capacity. The largest volumecontributor to February’s growth, however, was the Asia-Pacific region which posted a 10.2%year-on-year gain on a capacity increase of 7.4%. Airlines in the region thus improved theirfreight load factor to an average of 56%.

European and North American carriers saw year-on-year declines in cargo traffic of 1.4% and 0.3%respectively, reflecting the weak state of the two regions’ respective economies. Latin Americanairlines saw the most significant decline with a 3.6% fall compared to previous-year levels.African carriers posted growth of 3.2% over the previous year demand levels but on very smallvolumes.