Robust demand growth for air cargo in July
aTP- Arab tourism portal News- The air cargo industry received a boost in July as there was “robust growth in demand” during the month, but IATA warns of headwinds ahead.
The latest statistics from IATA show that air cargo demand increased by 5% year on year in July, which is the fastest pace of growth in almost 18 months.
Growth was led by European airlines with demand growth of 7.2% in freight tonne km terms, while Middle Eastern airlines reported an increase of 6.7%, Asia Pacific carriers saw a 4.9% improvement and North American carriers reported a jump of 4.1%.African airlines saw demand during the month decline by 6.8% while there was a slide of 5.6% for Latin America.
However, the airline association’s new director general and chief executive, Alexandre de Juniac, warned this improvement could have been an anomaly."July was a positive month for air freight — which is an all too rare occurrence,” he said. “Despite that, we must recognize that we face some strong headwinds on fundamental aspects of the business.
“Global trade growth is sluggish and business confidence is weak. And the political rhetoric on both sides of the Atlantic is not encouraging for further trade liberalization,”While demand increased 5% during the month, capacity was up by the larger amount of 5.2% and as a result the global load factor slipped 0.1 percentage points to 41.3%.
