The year has started off very well for the airline industry, with almost all carriers recording revenue and volume growth, and posting higher yields in January 2018 year-over-year, according to the latest data from WorldACD.
The air cargo market intelligence provider said nearly all airlines logged revenue growth, and more than one-third realized volume increases from 10% to 50% in January compared to the same month last year. Worldwide volume was up by 8.5% year-over-year.
However, worldwide air cargo yield fell back to a level of US$1.89 in January 2018, which is 7.8% below December, but 16.8% higher than in January 2017.
Except for the origin Africa which showed a positive yield change month-over-month of 1.8%, all other origin regions recorded yield drops from 1% to 10% month-on-month, bringing yields back from the lofty peaks they reached towards the end of 2017.
Top yield growth year-on-year among the largest origins in Africa came from Ghana (23%). In Asia Pacific, yields grew most from the origins Australia (26%) and Japan (21%), in Latin America from Chile (22%) and Colombia (14%), in Europe from Germany (18%) and the UK (10%), in the Middle East & South Asia from Bangladesh (9%) and India (3%), and in the U.S. from the Midwest (12%) and the Atlantic South (10%).
But the report pointed out that while the worldwide U.S. dollar yield rose by 16.8% year-on-year in January, helped considerably by a devaluing U.S. dollar, the yield increase was a mere 1.6% in euro terms.
Meanwhile, volume growth in the pre-Chinese New Year, with the CNY falling on February 16 this year compared to January 28 last year, is estimated to be in the range of 4% to 6%.
WorldACD said this is “a serious growth,” but hints at “an overall growth pace lower than the increase shown in the full January-figures.”
The report also highlighted the trends observed in 2017 in the various air cargo product categories.
Average worldwide yield for special cargo (excluding perishables) was 45% higher than for general cargo. A year earlier, the difference was 50%. General cargo grew 11% compared with 7% growth for other cargo categories; this compares with growth of 3% and 5% in 2016, respectively.
High-tech products, flowers, and pharmaceuticals showed the highest absolute growth of all special cargo. The biggest contributors to the growth were Hong Kong and Singapore for high-tech goods, Colombia and Ecuador for flowers, and India and Belgium for pharmaceuticals. Among freight forwarders, the biggest contributors to the growth in these three categories were DB Schenker, Cargomaster, and Kuehne + Nagel.
Photo: kskuebler
