September 2020 marked the end of the first two “COVID-19 quarters”. The month itself seemed to bring some reason for optimism, as the year-over-year (YoY) drop in kilograms worldwide was by far the lowest since April: -12.5% for September against -33% for April. Month-over-month (MoM), September showed a 7% increase, whilst September 2019 was more or less the same as August 2019. Even yields/charges per kilogram seemed to “stabilize” around USD 2.82 (still more than 60% higher YoY…). In short: air cargo was in its best shape since April.
We have noted that quite a bit of the COVID-related equipment is marked as general cargo. With the “second wave” growing over the past months, this may well be one of the reasons why general cargo was up by 8% (MoM) in September, and other product categories by only 4%. Transport of flowers increased by 7% MoM, but other perishables, vulnerable goods and pharmaceuticals by around 2% only. Thus, general cargo’s share of the total business showed a MoM increase from 65.5% to 66.5%.
