In its latest report on air cargo, the representative body of the global airline industry, the International Air Transport Association (Iata), reported that the data showed that demand was stable but at a lower level than for last year. Because of the continued lack of belly hold cargo space on passenger airliners, due to the continued parking of many airliners, air cargo capacity remains constrained.

“Economic indicators are improving, but we have not yet seen that fully reflected in growing air cargo shipments,” reported Iata director-general and CEO Alexandre de Juniac. “That said, air cargo is much stronger than the passenger side of the business.”

This latest report covers July. In that month, global air cargo demand, measured in cargo metric ton-kilometres (CTKs), was 13.5% lower than in the same month last year. For international operations, the fall was 15.5%. However, this was a small improvement over June’s 16.6% year-on-year decline. When seasonally adjusted, demand in July was 2.6% up on that in June.

Global air cargo capacity in July was 31.2% down, year-on-year. (International operations capacity went down by 32.9%.) Again, this was a slight improvement on the year-on-year fall of 33.4% in June. Belly hold capacity in July was 70.5% less than for the same month last year. However, a 28.8% increase in the use of freighter aircraft partially offset this.

“[O]ne of our biggest challenges remains accommodating demand with severely reduced capacity,” he highlighted. “If borders remain closed, travel curtailed and passenger fleets grounded, the ability of air cargo to keep the global economy moving will be challenged.”

The region that suffered the biggest year-on-year fall in air cargo demand in July was Latin America, with a collapse of 33.2%, far worse than the second most severely affected region, Europe, where the fall was 22%. The Asia-Pacific experienced a decline of 17.7%, while that for the Middle East was 14.9%. Africa registered the shallowest fall, of just 4%, while North America actually experienced an increase in demand, of 2.9%.