While the percentages in the chart above clearly show continued growth in air freight demand in October, they are well down from what they were in September, and even further down from the double-digit percentages we have seen through much of this year.<\/span><\/p>\n

Looking back at 2016, air freight demand growth was negative at the beginning of the year, turning positive in April, with low single-digit year-over-year gains through August. But in September, growth began to accelerate, up 6.1% in that month, and then 8.2%, 6.8%, and 9.8% in October, November, and December, respectively. With these tougher comparisons, the gains in current and future months will inevitably come down to earth, but, as we said at the beginning, demand itself remains strong, and as long as carriers continue to manage capacity wisely, they will continue to enjoy the benefits of that strong demand.<\/span><\/p>\n

We will update this post when we have more results (Hong Kong International, Cathay Pacific, and Air China have not yet reported), but we expect that when IATA and WorldACD publish their detailed analyses of cargo traffic worldwide in two weeks, we will see growth in mid-single digits.<\/span><\/p>\n

Now for the details\u2026<\/span><\/p>\n

Africa<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

An IATA report early October had praise\u00a0African carriers’<\/strong> improving performance in 2017, month-on-month. The region posted the largest year-on-year increase in demand of all regions in August 2017 with freight volumes growing 29.4%. This is a slight slowdown from July but still more than three times the five-year average pace of growth of 8.8%. Capacity increased by 5.9% over the same period. Demand has been boosted by very strong growth on the trade lanes to and from Asia which increased by more than 67% in the first half of the year.<\/span><\/p>\n

Asia Pacific<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

Shanghai Pudong International Airport Cargo Terminal Co Ltd\u00a0<\/em>(Pactl) reported its October handle up 10.1% y-o-y to 169,000 tonnes, well down from the 15.9% gain in September, and its smallest year-over-year gain since April. However, we point out that this is a drop-off in demand\u00a0growth,<\/em>\u00a0not of a fall-off in demand itself. In fact, we believe Pactl\u2019s October cargo handle may be all-time record \u2013 not just for October, but for any month. But, with a much tougher comparison month in October 2016, the\u00a0rate<\/em>\u00a0of growth has fallen. International volume for the month was up 11.1% to 160,000 tonnes, while the much smaller domestic volume was down 6.8% to 10,000 tonnes (Pactl handles very little of PVG\u2019s domestic cargo). For the first ten months of 2017, Pactl\u2019s handle was up 12.6% to 1.53 million tonnes.<\/span><\/p>\n

Guangzhou-based China Southern Airlines<\/em>\u00a0reported October cargo traffic up 6.8% y-o-y to 593 million RTKs. This is down from the 16% to 23% growth the carrier has reported in recent months, although it still leaves China Southern\u2019s year-to-date cargo traffic up 15.4% over 2016, at 5.74 billion RTKs. International traffic growth was fairly strong in October, up 13.5% y-o-y to 452 million RTKs, but a 10.3% drop in domestic traffic to 140 million RTKs brought the total down.<\/span><\/p>\n

Taiwan-based\u00a0China Airlines<\/em>\u00a0reported October cargo traffic up 5.9% y-o-y to 513 million RTKs, the fourteenth consecutive month of increased traffic after a long period of declining demand. And while the percentage growth rate may have fallen (against a tougher comparison) China Airlines\u2019 cargo revenue continues to grow strongly, up 19.5% y-o-y in October. Year-to-date, CAL\u2019s cargo traffic was up 7.9% to 4.69 billion RTKs, and cargo revenue was up 20.5%.<\/span><\/p>\n

Taiwan-based\u00a0EVA Air<\/em>\u00a0reported October cargo traffic down 6.3% y-o-y to 315 million RTKs, the carrier\u2019s first negative result after sixteen months of gains. However, EVA\u2019s cargo yield continues to grow strongly and cargo revenue for the month was up 2.5%, despite the significant drop in traffic. For the first ten months of the year, EVA\u2019s cargo traffic was up 4.4% to 3.06 billion RTKs, while cargo revenue rose 10.4%.<\/span><\/p>\n

South Korea\u2019s\u00a0Incheon Airport<\/em>\u00a0reported its October cargo handle down 2.5%, to 247,000 tonnes. For the first ten months of 2017, ICN\u2019s handle was up 8.0% to 2.40 million tonnes.<\/span><\/p>\n

Europe & Middle East<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

Lufthansa\u00a0<\/em>reported Group cargo traffic up 2.4% y-o-y in October to 973 million RTKs, the lowest growth rate since the carrier reported 0.7%\u00a0 y-o-y growth in August 2016. Traffic on the trans-Atlantic lane grew 4.3% to 426 million RTKs, but traffic to\/from the Asia-Pacific region was up just 0.5% to 440 million RTKs. The strongest growth for the month \u2013 a 6.6% increase \u2013 was in traffic to\/from the Middle East\/Africa region, but the total of 74 million RTKs was relatively small. For the first ten months of 2017, Lufthansa Group\u2019s cargo traffic was up 7.3% to 8.96 billion RTKs.<\/span><\/p>\n

Air France-KLM Martinair<\/em>\u00a0reported October cargo traffic up 1.2% y-o-y to 766 million RTKs. Air France reported October traffic up 4.7% to 332 million RTKs, but a 1.4% decline in KLM\u2019s traffic to 434 million RTKs dragged the group result down. For the year through October, AF-KLM\u2019s cargo traffic was up 1.3% to 7.08 billion RTKs.<\/span><\/p>\n

International Airlines Group<\/em>\u00a0reported October cargo traffic up 4.6% y-o-y to 527 million RTKs. Subsidiary carrier British Airways reported October cargo traffic up 5.5% to 403 million RTKs, while Spain-based Iberia\u2019s cargo was down 0.9% to 110 million RTKs. Ireland-based Aer Lingus reported October cargo traffic up 27.3% to 14 million RTKs. For the first ten months of 2017, IAG\u2019s cargo traffic was up 5.7% to 4.75 billion RTKs.<\/span><\/p>\n

Turkish Airlines<\/em>\u00a0reported October cargo volume up 21.6% y-o-y to 106,000 tonnes. Turkish has reported the strongest year-over-year growth among major carriers for several years now, and while September\u2019s 21.6% is one of its smallest year-over-year gains this year, it is not all that much below the carrier\u2019s year-to-date increase of 26.3% to 917,000 tonnes.<\/span><\/p>\n

Frankfurt Airport\u00a0(FRA)<\/em>\u00a0reported its cargo handle up 0.8% y-o-y to 195,000 tonnes in October. For the first ten months of 2017, FRA\u2019s handle was up 4.3% to 1.85 million tonnes.<\/span><\/p>\n

Amsterdam\u2019s Schiphol Airport\u00a0<\/em>reported its October handle up 0.9% y-o-y to 155,000 tonnes. For the first ten months of the year, Schiphol\u2019s handle was up 7.4% to 1.47 million tonnes.<\/span><\/p>\n

London\u2019s Heathrow Airport\u00a0<\/em>(LHR) reported its October handle up 9.2% to 154,000 tonnes. Year-to-date, LHR\u2019s handle was up 10.3%, to 1.40 million tonnes. \u00a0\u00a0<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

Americas<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

After five months of small year-over-year increases in air freight demand, Chile-headquartered\u00a0LATAM Airlines Group returned to its long-standing pattern of declines, reporting October cargo traffic down 2.9% y-o-y to 318 million RTKs. For the year to date, LATAM\u2019s cargo traffic is down 1.5% compared to 2016, at 2.78 billion RTKs.<\/span><\/p>\n

United Airlines<\/em>\u00a0reported October cargo traffic up 12.3% y-o-y to 450 million RTKs, its nineteenth consecutive month of strong gains. Year-to-date, United\u2019s cargo traffic was up 18.5% to 3.96 billion RTKs.<\/span><\/p>\n

The turnaround plan at\u00a0Delta Air Lines<\/em>\u00a0continues to pay off. The Atlanta-based carrier reported October cargo traffic up 8.5% y-o-y to 287 million RTKs \u2013 its seventh consecutive monthly y-o-y gain after years of declining demand. This brings Delta\u2019s cargo traffic for the year to 2.64 billion RTKs, up 9.2% over the first ten months of 2016.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

With reports from Air Cargo World<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Demand for air freight is still extremely strong. Soaring yields and the backlogs building in Asian hubs offer ample testimony to that. We are clearly in the middle of a great peak season, and anyone who didn\u2019t book space long ago is suffering. But the rate of growth is falling. As we predicted back in…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":5965,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[6,1,47],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/moovafrica.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6737"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/moovafrica.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/moovafrica.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/moovafrica.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/moovafrica.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6737"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/moovafrica.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6737\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6741,"href":"http:\/\/moovafrica.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6737\/revisions\/6741"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/moovafrica.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5965"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/moovafrica.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6737"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/moovafrica.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6737"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/moovafrica.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6737"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}