With a high concentration of the world’s major air freight hubs located in the Asia-Pacific region, the slowing economic growth in China is making an impact on the growth of global volumes, which remained flat in August compared to last year, according to the latest data from Airports Council International (ACI).
Hong Kong, the region’s largest airfreight hub, declined by 1.4% year-over-year, said ACI. Despite the economic revival in advanced economies, airfreight contracted by 1.7% in North America. Memphis, a major FedEx hub, and Louisville, the UPS hub, each experienced a decrease of 1.4% and 0.8%, respectively, in year-over-year growth in volumes.
Growth comes in a trickle
Meanwhile, Hong Kong’s Cathay Pacific Airways released combined Cathay Pacific and Dragonair traffic figures for September 2015 that show an increase in the amount of cargo and mail uplifted compared to the same month last year.
The two airlines carried 151,358 tonnes of cargo and mail in September, an increase of 2.8% compared to the same month last year. The cargo and mail load factor rose by 0.2 percentage points to 62.4%. Capacity, measured in available cargo/mail tonne kilometers, rose by 3% while cargo and mail revenue tonne kilometers (RTKs) flown increased by 3.4%. In the year to the end of September, tonnage rose by 5.6% against a capacity increase of 7.2% and a 7.4% rise in RTKs.
“As expected, demand in the cargo markets began to climb as we moved into September, though it was more of a trickle than a surge,” said Mark Sutch, Cathay Pacific general manager for cargo sales and marketing.
“Our business received a boost from the movement of new consumer IT products out of the key manufacturing areas of Western China, but overall the momentum in the markets remained flat,” he continued.
He said the main focus would be on trans-Pacific routes to the Americas, but noted that demand to and from India continued to remain buoyant.
“We still expect to see a traditional winter peak and will be operating a full freighter schedule from mid-October through November.”
Photo: Terence Ong from Singapore
