Hopes of a recovery in airfreight demand suffered a setback in July as year-on-year volume growth during the month eased off compared with June levels.
The latest figures from WorldACD show that in July air cargo demand in terms of weight increased by 1.8% worldwide, compared with the 3% improvement seen in June.
The analyst said the month also saw the Asia Pacific region take back the crown of the growth engine of air cargo and that the northern hemisphere outperformed the southern hemisphere.
In its monthly report, the analyst said: “Whilst the southern hemisphere origins of Africa and Central & South America suffered (-1.2% resp. -1.8%), other origin areas showed growth ranging from 0.2% in Europe to 3.7% in Asia Pacific.
“The latter looks to be on its way to reclaim the position of air cargo's engine as Europe is losing a bit of its recent lustre.”
In terms of US dollar yields, the analyst said, news was slightly better, as the worldwide yield remained stable month-over-month.
Only Europe and North America had a yield drop compared to June, all other origin areas showed a slight increase.
For the year 2016 through July yields dropped least in Central & South America (-3%) and Africa (-5%), but most in Asia Pacific (-21%).
“Taking a look at individual markets, we see that 21 of the Top-100 show a year-on-year growth of more than 10% in the year so far.
“Of the Top-20 individual markets, Germany-China East and China East-Germany stand out with a volume growth of 20% and 12 % respectively.
“China East also does very well to the USA Pacific States (+13%), while Germany - India grew by 11%.
“The worst performing of the Top-20 individual markets are Colombia-US Atlantic South, Germany-US Midwest, US Pacific States-Japan and Hong Kong-US Pacific States, all recording a year-on-year volume decrease of more than 10% for the year so far.”
