The global air cargo industry has entered 2015 propelled by “solid growth”, with expectations that the airfreight market’s expected 4.5% hike for the new year would outpace the projected 4% growth in world trade, the International Air Transport Association (Iata) said on Wednesday.

The air cargo industry rallied in the second half of 2014, reversing years of stalled growth when world trade volumes and domestic production growth remained on par since 2011.

Air cargo volumes were positively impacted when a surge in cross-border trade resulted in growth overtaking the stable domestic industrial production.

“More goods are being traded internationally and that is fuelling the growth in air freight,” explained Iata director general and CEO Tony Tyler.

Iata’s November statistics showed demand measured in freight tonne kilometres (FTK) growing by 4.2% compared with a year before and a “healthy” 0.8% when compared with October 2014.

Capacity rose 3.3% year-on-year.
Iata said concerns have been rising about the health of the global economy at the start of 2015 and business confidence weakened.

However, the association averred that there was “little sign” of major cause for concern in the November airfreight data.

“Its continued growth reflected the broader acceleration of world trade that began in mid-2014. Weakness in airfreight is usually one of the first signs of economic weakness. Growth did slow in November, but not by much,” it stated.

UNEVEN GROWTH
The November data revealed that the reported growth was skewed in favour of Asia Pacific and the Middle East.

Asia-Pacific, accounting for 55% of the growth, and the Middle East, holding 38%, reported an increase in FTKs of 5.9% and 12.9% respectively.

Asia-Pacific airlines reported a 4% capacity increase, while Middle Eastern carriers had a 17.1% increase in capacity.

African airlines experienced the second-strongest year-on-year growth rate in November, expanding 10.5%, but the region carried only a small part of the world’s airfreight. Load factors also improved as capacity was trimmed by 2.9%.

European airlines saw a 0.9% rise in FTKs, with capacity expanded by 2.6%, while North American carriers recorded a FTK decline of 0.3% and a fall in capacity of 2.6%.

Airlines in Latin American reported a 0.7% fall in FTKs with capacity reduced by 0.5%.