Worldwide air cargo volumes in August showed only a slight year-over-year increase of 0.6%, the third month in a row of minimal growth, according to WorldACD, citing its latest traffic data.
The small shift towards longer haul markets also continued, it noted.
The regional year-on-year volume figures for August hardly changed from the previous monthly report, the airfreight analyst said. Volumes from the origins Africa and Europe again contracted year-on-year, down 7.1% and 1.5%, respectively. They were joined this time by the origin MESA (Middle East and South Asia), for which a 2.9% drop year-over-year was recorded.
Asia-Pacific and North America grew a bit more than in July, registering growth of 2% and 1.6%, respectively. Latin America continued to be the positive outlier among the origins, notching an 8.8% growth year-on-year. Likewise, Europe remained the best performing destination region with a year-on-year volume growth in August of 2.8%. The destinations Asia-Pacific and North America grew at about half that pace.
On yield performance year-on-year, WorldACD said the worldwide air cargo yield remained stable as it stood at US$1.89 in August 2018, about 10% higher than in August 2017. Measured in euros, the worldwide yield increased by 13% year-over-year.
In U.S. dollar terms, the origins Asia-Pacific and Latin America scored highest, with 11.6% and 11.4%, respectively. Yields ex-Europe, measured in euro, increased by 11.2%.
For the period January-August, Africa showed the largest growth gap between incoming volumes (+3.8%) and outgoing volumes (-4.5%) year-on-year, thus increasing the existing imbalance between northbound and southbound cargo.
Latin America showed an export growth of 11.5% and an import growth of 4%. Asia-Pacific growth was about the same in incoming and outgoing traffic. MESA and North America showed the same pattern (exports growing by 2% points more than imports), whilst Europe’s exports grew much less than its imports (+1.8% vs +5.5%).
Interestingly, in Asia-Pacific and MESA, the largest contributors—China, Hong Kong, and India—each showed negative growth in the year so far, said the report. India, by now the sixth largest air cargo market in the world, makes exports by air to the U.S. (16.9% share of India’s total air cargo exports), the UK (9.3% share), Germany (8.4% share), the United Arab Emirates (5.1% share), Qatar (4.2% share), and Saudi Arabia (4.1% share).
Photo: Rajdeep86041
