News
Asia-Pacific remains weakest air freight market
May 1st 2019
In its latest air freight market analysis, the International Air Transport Association (IATA) has reported air cargo volumes rebounded in March, but that the Asia-Pacific was the only region to record cargo volume below that of a year ago. Read More »
“Despite a sizeable improvement this month, international FTK (Freight Tonne Kilometres) flown by Asia-Pacific airlines are still 3.8% lower than their levels of a year ago. With the region accounting for around 32% of global FTKs, this weakness is the main contributor to the soft industry wide outcome,” IATA said.
“As the world’s main manufacturing and assembly hub, the slowdown in world trade combined with the slowing in the Chinese economy in the second half of 2018 and the ongoing trade tensions between China and U.S. have all weighed upon the annual air freight performance for the region.”
IATA cautioned however that “freight data are particularly volatile over the opening months of the year, making it difficult to interpret the month-to-month movements”.
Averaged worldwide, air cargo volume declined 1.5% over March 2018, with the Asia-Pacific being the main contributor to the global average decline. Since its most recent peak in August 2018, FTKs are down by approximately 4%, IATA said.
Despite the immediate short-term cargo business decline, findings from the association’s most recent Business Confidence Survey indicate the industry is relatively optimistic about the air freight outlook for the coming 12 months.
Taking into account capacity is still outpacing demand, 54% of respondents expected the freight business to increase in the coming year with only 13% forecasting an industry fall off. Industry wide, capacity, measured by Available Freight Tonne Kilometres (AFTK) increased by 3.1% year-on-year in March compared with 6%-7% previously.
Generally, IATA said, “freight volumes to and from Europe are growing, but a double digit decline for the North American market and a solid fall for the Asia-Pacific highlight the challengers for the region’s carriers”.
Hong Kong International Airport is the Asia-Pacific’s busiest air freight airport. In 2018, it handled 5.1 million tonnes of air cargo. In recent years, it has established cargo depots at strategic locations in the Pearl River Delta to facilitate the flow of goods from supply chains in China to HKIA air cargo operators.
For the month, the Asia-Pacific’s share of the total air freight market was 36.1% followed by Europe (23.4%), North America (23%), Middle East (13.2%), Latin America (2.6%) and Africa (1.7%).
