Cargo transported by airlines fell almost 9% in June year-on-year, further widening the gap between the first half of 2019 and the same period in 2018, according to the latest data from WorldACD.
In June, air cargo volume contracted 8.9% year-over-year in terms of chargeable weight and 8.6% in direct ton kilometers. Month-on-month, the decline was 6.8%. Combined with a year-on-year yield decrease of 6.3% in U.S. dollars, the airlines suffered a year-on-year revenue decrease of almost 15% in June.
General cargo volume declined by 12.5% in the month year-on-year while special cargo showed a contraction of 0.4%.
Under special cargo, only high tech (+3.7%), pharmaceuticals (+5.3%), flowers (+4.6%) and fish/seafood (+4.5%) showed improvement, but the first two posted yields that fell more than volume increased.
On regional performance for the month, only the origin Africa showed a modest year-on-year volume increase of 1.2% in June, coupled with a 0.6% yield increase in U.S. dollars. In contrast, Europe reported a 12.5% year-on-year decrease in volume, combined with a yield drop of more than 10% in U.S. dollars.
Of the larger regions, Asia-Pacific logged a year-on-year volume drop of 7.4% for outgoing, and of 9% for incoming air cargo.
The further into 2019, the poorer the results, noted WorldACD, with the second quarter contributing the most to the sharp reversal of air cargo’s fortunes this year compared with 2018.
Given the extraordinary growth in 2018, WorldACD compared the first part of 2019 with the first part of the “more realistic” 2017 and found that even here, the first half of this year now showed a slight decrease as well (-0.6% worldwide, with North America the exception among the larger regions, with an outbound weight growth of 2%).
Compared now with the first half of 2018, total weight reported in the first six months of 2019 fell by 4.8%.
The three largest areas fared worst: Asia-Pacific fell 5.6%, North America, 5.5%, and Europe 5.3%. Only five sub-regions showed growth from their territory in the first half of 2019 as opposed to 2018: Australasia (0.4%), East Africa (2.6%), Northern Europe (10%), North Africa (3%) and Central Asia (20.1%). As destinations, North, West and East Africa increased (between 3.1% and 8%), and so did the Gulf Area and Central Asia, albeit minimally.
The special cargo categories doing well in June were also the ones doing well during the first half of this year.
On the trade war between China and the U.S., the report said business between the two “supermarkets” was not worse off than the air cargo business elsewhere in the first half of the year compared to the same period last year.
Both volume and revenue developments from China to the U.S. were completely in line with the drop in China’s total exports by air. From the U.S. to China it was the same for overall cargo sales, notably except for the fact that the volume drop to China was twice as big as the general volume drop from the U.S., but this was totally offset by a strong yield increase.
“In both directions, most carriers based in North America did markedly better than most of their Northeast Asian and Chinese counterparts,” said the report.
Photo: Dtom
