The International Air Transport Association (Iata), the representative body of the global airline industry, reported on Tuesday that worldwide air cargo demand was recovering, but slowly. In June, air cargo demand, measured in cargo-metric ton-kilometres, was 17.6% lower than in June last year. However, this represented a small improvement over May’s year-on-year fall of 20.1%.

Regarding air cargo capacity, in June this fell by 34.1% on a year-on-year basis. For international air cargo, this fall was 33.9%. The overall figure was similar to the equivalent drop in May, which was 34.8% for all air cargo.

Available airliner belly cargo capacity in June collapsed 70% in year-on-year terms, because of the grounding of passenger flights resulting from the Covid-19 pandemic. This was, however, partly compensated by a 32% rise in freighter aircraft capacity.

In terms of the wider economy, June saw the stabilisation of global manufacturing demand. The Purchasing Managers Index (PMI) in June bounced back to its highest level since January. The PMI’s new export orders category registered an 11 point increase in June over May, the biggest monthly rise since the PMI series was started in 1999.

In regional terms, in June Europe and Latin America suffered the worst year-on-year air freight volume declines. Latin America saw a 29.4% fall while Europe suffered a drop of 27.6% (although this was a small improvement in comparison to the year-on-year decline of 29.5% in May).

The regions that suffered the least were Africa and North America. Africa saw a June year-on-year fall of 13.8%, although this was greater than the equivalent decline of 7.3% in May. This fact was owing to the pandemic having a more severe impact on the continent in June. The small Africa-Asia air cargo sector actually continued to increase, by 20.1% in June. 

Regarding North America, in June it saw a year-on-year decrease in international air cargo demand of only 8.8%. This performance was due to the large freighter fleets found in the region, plus financial support from the US government.

“Cargo is, by far, healthier than the passenger markets but doing business remains exceptionally challenging,” highlighted Iata director-general and CEO Alexandre de Juniac. “While economic activity is restarting after major lockdown disruptions there has not been a major boost in demand. The rush to get personal protective equipment to market has subsided as supply chains regularised, enabling shippers to use cheaper sea and rail options. And the capacity crunch continues because passenger operations are recovering very slowly.”