American Airlines saw its cargo traffic and revenues increase during the first quarter of the year, but this was not enough to stop yields declining.
The US airline, which recently won the Cargo Airline of the Year award, registered a 13.8% year-on-year improvement in first-quarter traffic to 619m cargo ton miles, while revenues improved by the lower amount of 6.2% to $172m.
It is the second quarter in a row the airline has registered an improvement in cargo revenues after seven quarters of year-on-year declines.
On the traffic front, the airline has now registered improvements in each of the last four quarters but this is the largest improvement since Air Cargo News records began in 2014.
For yields the quarter was not quite so strong as the airline’s cargo yield per ton mile slipped to 27.79 cents against 29.78 cents during the same period in 2016 and 28.97 cents for the final three months of last year.
Last month, United reported double-digit improvements in cargo revenues and traffic for the first quarter, but yields were also down.
Delta, meanwhile, recorded a small decline in cargo revenues and traffic, but it does have the highest yield per cargo ton mile of the three airlines.
