Pactl’s cargo handle up almost 15% in July

A month ago, Shanghai Pudong International Airport Cargo Terminal Co Ltd (Pactl, the biggest handler at Shanghai’s Pudong Airport) reported a 13.8% y-o-y increase in its June cargo handle to 155,000 tonnes, its biggest year-over-year gain this year.

Well, that was June, and Pactl’s July results are even stronger.

Pactl reported its July handle up 14.4% to 160,000 tonnes, a new monthly record. International volume for the month was up 15.8% to 1520,000 tonnes, while the much smaller domestic volume was down 7.9% to 8,000 tonnes (most of Shanghai’s domestic cargo moves through nearby Hongqiao Airport). For the first seven months of 2017, Pactl’s handle was up 12.0% to 874,000 tonnes.

Pactl started the year strongly, with a 12.3% y-o-y increase for the combined January/February period, and stayed in double digits with an 11.4% jump in March tonnage. April saw a bit of a fall-off, with growth dropping to 9.6% over April 2015. This was part of a worldwide trend of slowing (though still strong) growth in April, and we wondered if it was the beginning of a return to slower growth for the rest of the year. But year-over-year jumps of 13.0% in May and 13.8% in June made it clear that cargo volume in Shanghai was still growing at a pace we have not seen for many years.

And now the pace of that growth is accelerating.

Whether the growth at Pactl in July is a reliable indicator of air cargo growth worldwide remains to be seen, but it does look as if the strong growth in the first half is continuing.

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