Last month saw continued strong growth in the world’s air cargo markets, the International Air Transport Association (Iata) reported on Wednesday. (Iata is the representative body for the global airline industry.) In terms of regions, the strongest performance was recorded in Africa and the weakest was in Latin America.

“Air cargo demand had another strong month in August, up 7.7% compared to pre-Covid levels,” highlighted Iata director-general Willie Walsh. “Many of the economic indicators point to a strong year-end peak season.” (Because of the highly distortionary effects on aviation of the Covid-19 pandemic last year, Iata is using the months of 2019 as the basis for comparison for the industry’s monthly performance during this year.)

International air cargo demand in August was actually up even more, at 8.6%. Africa was the strongest performing Iata region, with international air cargo demand increasing by 33.9% last month, in comparison to August 2019. The main driver for this was the Africa-Asia route, which recorded a 26.4% increase in volumes last month. At the other extreme, Latin America actually recorded a decline in international volumes of 14%.

As for the other regions, international air cargo volumes transported by North American carriers were up 18% last month, followed by the Middle Eastern carriers, with a 15.4% rise. European carriers lagged behind, with an increase of 6%, while Asia-Pacific carriers reported an uptick of 3%. Moreover, the figure for the Asia-Pacific indicated a slowdown in demand in comparison with July, for which the region’s carriers had reported an increase in demand of 4.4%.

But air cargo capacity was not keeping pace with the rising demand. “With international travel still severely depressed, there are fewer passenger planes offering belly capacity for cargo,” he pointed out. “And supply chain bottlenecks could intensify as businesses continue to ramp up production.”

Globally, total air cargo capacity in August was 12.2% down on August 2019. For international air cargo, the drop was 13.2%. And cargo capacity last month was also down, in month-on-month terms, by 1.6%, which was the biggest such decline since January. The region that saw the greatest decline in international capacity, in comparison with August 2019, was Latin America, with a fall of 27.1%, followed by the Asia-Pacific, with a drop of 21.7%. Europe also recorded a double-digit decline, of 13.6%. The reduction for North America was 6.6% and for the Middle East, 5.1%. Africa reported a decline in international capacity of only 2.1%.