Global air freight tonnage grows 11.8pc
GENEVA, September 19, 2017
The annual growth in air freight tonne kilometres (FTKs) accelerated to 11.8 per cent in the three months ended July, its fastest pace since late-2010, an International Air Transport Association (Iata) report said.
Airline heads of cargo remain positive about the outlook over the year ahead, although indicators suggest that the current cyclical upturn in year-on-year FTK growth may be nearing a peak, the latest quarterly Cargo Market Analysis by Iata said.
Rising cargo yields are helping to offset upward pressure on breakeven loads from increased input prices. Given the recent increase in freight loads and freighter utilization, this is supporting financial performance, the report added.
The acceleration in FTK was driven by a pick-up in the contribution from North American airlines, helped by further increases in FTKs flown across the Atlantic. Freight traffic on all of the major international markets is currently growing in the region of 10-15 per cent year-on-year, it said.
Having slowed earlier in the year, the quarterly seasonally adjusted (SA) pace of FTK growth recovered to match the sort of pace seen in the strong second half of 2016.
Market drivers
The global economic and trade backdrop has remained supportive of air freight demand. World trade volumes grew by 4.1 per cent year-on-year in H1 2017 – the strongest start to a year since 2011.
* Signs suggest that the cyclical upturn in FTK growth may be nearing a peak – not least the fact that the inventory-to-sales ratio has stopped falling. However, business surveys remain consistent with solid annual FTK growth of around 7.5 per cent in Q3 2017.
Capacity, costs and yields
As much as 817 tonnes of additional payload capacity have been added to the freighter fleet so far this year – nearly half the amount that was added in the same
period of 2016. Almost eight times as much belly payload capacity was added through wide-body passenger deliveries, but even this was a 6 per cent lower than was added last year.
Cargo yields (including fuel and other surcharges) rose by 7.9 per cent year-on-year in July 2017 – its fastest pace in more than six years. Rising cargo yields are
helping to offset upward pressure on breakeven loads from increased input prices, the report said.
The ongoing upward trend in large freighter utilization will help to lower unit costs further, and to reinforce the backdrop for financial performance, it continued.
When surveyed in early-July, airline heads of cargo remained confident about the outlook for demand over the year ahead. Despite the recent upward trend in cargo yields, the survey respondents were slightly more balanced on the outlook than they were in the previous survey. - TradeArabia News Service
