American Airlines, Delta Airlines and LATAM all recorded year-on-year air cargo demand declines in October, while United once again saw volumes increase.
The largest of the airlines in cargo terms, United, recorded a 2.6% year-on-year increase in demand to 233m cargo ton miles (CTM).
This increase is a little lower than the growth experienced by United over the first ten months of the year, which stands at 6.3% over the 2014 levels.
The US airline to experience the largest downturn in demand during October was Delta, which recorded a 10.3% slide on a year earlier to 192m CTM. This compares with a year-to-date decline of 6.4% for the first ten months of 2015.
American, meanwhile, recorded a 2.3% decline in October to 208m CTM. Its volumes for the first ten months are flat on the prior year.
October’s decrease follows on from demand growth for American in August and September.
In South America, LATAM endured an even tougher month in terms of cargo demand as it suffered a 15.3% year-on-year decline to 333m revenue tonne km.
While it decreased its capacity on last year through a reduced freighter operation, this was not enough to offset the demand decline and as a result its load factor in October decreased to 54.9% from 62.9% last year.
It said demand was affected by a weak Brazilian domestic and international market.
October also gives an indication as to how strong this year’s peak season will be. While all four airlines recorded an increase in demand compared with September’s level, for some the spike was not as pronounced as in 2014.
American recorded a month-on-month increase in demand of 10.6% in October this year, but this lags behind last year’s 16.4% jump.
LATAM also recorded a weaker peak spike in 2015 compared with last year as it saw volumes jump by 8.8% in October compared with September, while last year the increase reached 12.6%.
However, United recorded a 9.9% jump this year compared with a 9.1% increase last year and demand at Delta was up 5.5% in October against September in 2015 but last year the growth was limited to 2.8%.
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