Airport freight volume gains have maintained momentum after a rapid increase during the second and third quarters, reaching a 5.3% growth year-over-year in October 2017, Airports Council International (ACI) World reported.
Air freight numbers will likely exceed 7% global growth by the end of 2017, almost double the 4% growth posted in 2016.
Global airport passenger traffic also went up in October 2017, up 6.4% compared to October 2016, significantly higher than the September comparison figure of 5.1% growth, ACI said.
Strong global recovery in industrial production and trade continues to fuel key air freight markets. Africa continued to excel with an international freight volume increase of 15.4% in October, achieving a year-to-date rate of 13.5%.
Europe and North America followed behind Africa, achieving 7.6% and 7.4% increases in volume respectively. for the month covered. Latin America-Caribbean, Asia-Pacific ,and the Middle East posted increases of 6.1%, 2.6% and 1.3% respectively.
On a year-to-date basis, all regions except Latin America-Caribbean reached growth rates of more than 7%; even Latin America-Caribbean posted a robust 4.3% growth.
“At this point, we can surmise that 2017 will prove to have been a particularly good year for freight traffic,” said ACI.
Meanwhile, despite the strong rise on the global scale, there were signs of moderating passenger growth across several regions since September. Africa, Asia-Pacific, and Europe showed significant traffic growth in October compared to the same month last year, but North America, Latin America-Caribbean, and the Middle East experienced more modest gains. The former reached +8.2%, +8.1% and +7.5%, respectively, while the latter posted figures of +4.3%, +3.6% and +3.3%, respectively.
Photo: Foto Wolfgang Pehlemann
