Cargo traffic falls across the board in April first look

Despite a bounce back from earlier declines that major carriers reported for March , sharper year-over-year traffic slowdowns in April indicate the month was the worst this year for many of the carriers that have reported results so far. Of the carriers tracked by Cargo Facts , only Air France-KLM reported an increase in traffic, of 3.3%, for April. Carriers that reported declines in April include Air China, China Southern Airlines, Singapore Airlines, and EVA Air in the Asia-Pacific region; Lufthansa Group, Turkish Cargo, and International Airlines Group in the Europe and Middle East region; and LATAM Cargo and Delta Air Lines in the Americas. Meanwhile, Cathay Pacific and China Airlines have not yet reported April results. China Airlines has not reported traffic figures since February, when it reported that traffic for the first two months of 2019 was down 11.5% year-over-year. Turning to the individual results: Asia-Pacific Singapore Airlines reported April cargo traffic down 7.5 % year-over-year to 534 million FTKs, while cargo tonnage declined by 5.7% to just over 100,000 tonnes . Year-to-date, cargo traffic is down 7. 0 % to 2.1 billion FTKs. Beijing-based Air China’s cargo traffic for April was 1.6 % lower than in April 2018 at 41 5 million RTKs , for slight month-to-month growth. Overall tonnage declined by 0.5% to about 120,000 tonnes . For the first four months of 2019, traffic is down 1.4%, and tonnage is 0.7% lower than during the same period in 2018. Guangzhou-based China Southern Airlines reported another month of y-o-y declines in April of 1.0%, marking a month-over-month decline of 5.6%, to 628 million RTKs. Although regional traffic was up , domestic and international traffic declined during April. Year-to-date, traffic is up by a slight 0.4% to 2.3 billion RTKs. Taiwan-based EVA Air reported a sharp 12.7 % y-o-y decline in traffic for April to 272 million FTKs. April’s falling traffic was the steepest drop reported by the carrier so far in 2019 . Tonnage also fell by 12.7% to roughly 48,000 tonnes . Year-to-date, EVA’s cargo traffic is down 8.1%, and tonnage is down 9.0%. Europe & Middle East Air France-KLM’s April traffic rose 3.3% y-o-y across the group to 698 million FTKs , thanks to a strong increase in April traffic of 14.6% at Air France and offset by a 4.4% decline in traffic at KLM. Across the group , carriers reported a year-to-date increase of 1.2% in traffic, to 2.7 billion FTKs. International Airlines Group reported a 1.9% y-o-y decline in April cargo traffic , to 471 million RTKs . Regarding the Group’s subsidiary carriers, traffic declined on British Airways by 2.4% in April and was otherwise flat y-o-y. For the first four months of 2019, traffic is still up by 1.4% to 1.9 billion RTKs. Lufthansa Cargo Group airlines reported April traffic down by 4.2 % y-o-y to 885 million RTKs. From a regional perspective, losses were primarily driven by drops in traffic in the Americas and Asia-Pacific markets, which fell by 6.5% and 8.2%, respectively. Traffic was up slightly in Europe and the Middle East/Africa regions, but combined, those regions make up only about 12.3% of Lufthansa Group’s April cargo traffic. Year-to-date, traffic is down 3. 3 % y-o-y to 3.4 billion FTKs across Lufthansa Group Airlines. Turkish Cargo reported its first y-o-y decline in cargo tonnage since we began collecting regular data in 2011. Overall tonnage fell by 12.9% to about 99,000 tonnes , representing a month-to-month decline of 28.4% from March, for the lowest monthly tonnage the carrier has reported since February 2018. Year-to-date, the carrier’s cargo tonnage is still up 8.3% compared to the same four months in 2018, but the sharp decline in April brought year-to-date growth down into the single digits. See also: Turkish Cargo’s April volumes plunge on international declines Americas LATAM Airlines Group reported April cargo traffic down 3.6 % y-o-y, to 285 million RTKs. Year-to-date, LATAM cargo traffic is up 0.5 %, at 1.2 b illion R TKs. Delta Air Lines reported April cargo traffic down by 11.9 % y-o-y to 2 35 million RTKs. Year-to-date, traffic was down 5.5 % to 948 million RTKs .

Cargo traffic falls across the board in April first look

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