The International Air Transport Association (Iata) has reported that the results for the world’s airlines for the fourth quarter of last year showed an improved financial performance for all regions except Latin America, compared with the fourth quarter of 2014. The last quarter 2015 results also consolidated a strong end to last year for the airline industry, propelled by North American carriers.

Further, the air passenger market worldwide is experiencing a strong start to this year, although passenger loads have declined a little in recent months, which will have to be watched carefully. “Further falls in air fares are likely to be seen in 2016 as fuel hedging contracts unwind and the decline in oil prices seen towards the end of last year feeds through,” stated Iata in its press release. “Exchange-rate-adjusted fares fell by 6.2% year-on-year in January.” Although crude oil prices rose during March, the aviation market believes that they will stay below $50/bl until late 2019.

Iata separately reported that global air freight volumes (measured in freight ton kilometres or FTKs) fell by 5.6% in February, compared with February 2015. However, this figure is misleading because strikes in US harbours in February last year caused a temporary jump in air freight and because the Lunar New Year – a very important holiday in East Asia, during which many factories are closed – fell in February this year, causing air cargo volumes to fall temporarily. For example, China’s exports fell in terms of value by 25% in February.

If the air cargo volumes for both January and February this year are compared with the same period last year, then they show a decline of 1.5%. However, if they are compared with the first two months of 2014, the result is an increase of 6.3% (this is equivalent to an annualised growth trend of 3.1%). “The air freight business remains a difficult one,” affirmed Iata director-general and CEO Tony Tyler. “February’s performance con- tinues a weak trend. And there are few factors on the horizon that would see this change substantially. In the absence of an imminent resurgence of demand, the importance of improving the value proposition with modernised processes – the efreight vision – remains a top priority.”

Africa accounted for 1.5% of global air cargo in February and suffered a of 1.7% in volumes, compared with February last year. Iata sees this largely as a result of the econo- mic woes afflicting the region’s two biggest economies, Nigeria and South Africa. Africa is the smallest of Iata’s regions in terms of air freight. The largest is Asia-Pacific, with a share of 38.9%, which saw a month-on-month fall in volumes of 12.4% owing to the combination of the US port strike last year and this year’s Lunar New Year.

Europe accounts for 22.3% of global air cargo volumes and experienced a month-on-month drop of 2.4%. The respective figures for North America were 20.5% and a fall of 4%. However, Latin America (2.8% of global air freight) saw a month-on-month rise of 2.7%, underpinned by North/South American routes, and the Middle East (14% of world air cargo) had an increase of 3.7%.

Meanwhile, Iata has also announced that its board of governors have unanimously agreed to recommend Air France-KLM chairperson and CEO Alexandre de Juniac as the association’s new director-general and CEO. This decision will be confirmed by the Iata annual general meeting (to be held from June 1 to 3 in Dublin, Ireland), after which Tyler will step down and retire.