WorldACD: ‘The beat goes on’ for airfreight’s good news

The strong growth story for the airfreight industry that began early in 2017, and continued unexpectedly through July, is “becoming somewhat monotonous,” reported WorldACD in its monthly airfreight market analysis for July. But it’s doubtful that anyone else in the industry is complaining.

Year-over-year volumes grew by 11.8 percent worldwide on the strength of traffic in Europe, the Middle East, South Asia and the Asia-Pacific regions, WorldACD said. Pharma transport rose especially quickly, with 17.6 percent y-o-y growth.

Yields also increased, y-o-y, by 7.8 percent, with most of the growth originating from the Asia-Pacific region, which saw a yield increase in U.S. dollars (USD) of 13.2 percent. However, July yields were mostly flat, compared with June in USD, and decreased by a slight 2.3 percent from June in euros.

WorldACD also noted, with the cautionary tone expected of its analysis, that the striking growth seen in China so far in 2017 – averaging 19 percent per month – slowed in July to only 8 percent growth, y-o-y. China’s declining growth rate also emerged in WorldACD figures for direct tonne kilometers (DTKs), which only just outpaced volume growth at 11.9 percent, y-o-y, worldwide. With more robust growth rates from China, which has been typical through most of 2017, DTK growth has almost always easily outpaced volume growth, given the mainly long-distance nature of cargo flights leaving China.

Beginning in September, WorldACD will launch a more detailed version of its monthly freight trend update, with detailed reporting on specific airfreight categories. As a preliminary to that, its July analysis noted that African carriers increased their share of specific products moving from Africa, taking market share from Europe and Middle East and South Asian carriers. European carriers also gained a larger share of freight from the Asia-Pacific region, and the Middle East and South Asian carriers gained market share ex-Europe. In the Americas, carriers increased their market share of cargo leaving from their own region, with more market share from Latin America than North America.

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