After a strong start in the early part of 2015, the air cargo industry faltered almost steadily for the rest of the year to record only moderate full-year volume increase, according to WorldACD.
Following a healthy year-on-year growth of 6% in 2014, coupled with a drop in yield of just 2.5%, last year’s air cargo volume worldwide rose by a meager 2% only.
The decline would have been bigger if not for the windfall on the trans-Pacific in the first quarter of 2015 as a result of the U.S. West Coast labor strife, said the air cargo research service.
It noted that worldwide growth dwindled from one quarter to the next, from 4% in the first quarter and 2.5% in the next to a mere 1% volume increase in the last two quarters of last year, but seeing an uptick in December of 2.1% year-on-year in line with the holiday peak season.
The various origin regions posted different performances. The Americas showed negative growth for the year, while Asia-Pacific logged contraction in the last quarter only. Africa just stayed in positive territory, while the Middle East and South Asia showed up-and-down growth across the four quarters.
But Europe “really bucked the worldwide trend,” said WorldACD, as it started with a 1.1% expansion in the first quarter then grew at a varying rate of 3% to 4% in Q2 and Q3, before finishing strongly with a 6% growth in the last quarter.
At the country-pair level, cargo carried on the 50 largest flows, as a percentage of the worldwide total, was slightly less than a year earlier, even though quite a few of these large origin and destination (O&D) pairings are on the trans-Pacific and benefited strongly from the windfall in early 2015. However, the large O&Ds made up for their loss of volume share through a marginally better yield performance.
A trend noted earlier continued, with the top 20 forwarders seeing their worldwide market share further decline, from 44.5% to 43%. But Kuehne+Nagel and Nippon Express were the exception, chalking up serious increases in their shares, followed by others such as DSV, SDV, CEVA, and Expeditors.
Photo: Mini1300
