World ACD has reported that in September – the air cargo industry recorded a decrease in worldwide volume of 0.9 per cent year-over-year (YOY) – the first negative growth figure in two-and-a-half years.
The data anlyst said despite this, airline revenues kept growing, however, thanks to a strengthening yield, but at the same time, fuel cost were around 32 per cent higher than one year ago.
However WorldACD said to put the month in context, compared with September 2017, the month had one Sunday more and one Friday less and this made for a drop of about 1-1.5 per cent in worldwide air cargo volumes, according to our earlier analysis of daily patterns.
Another factor was the performances of two major air cargo markets – Hong Kong (-7.7 per cent YOY) and Japan (-4.8 per cent YOY), which were negatively influenced by the September typhoons.
One other noteworthy development the data analyst reports was that whilst the origin China as a whole showed growth both YOY and month-over-month (MOM), the market from China to the USA was in decline: -1.8 per cent YOY and -4.4 per cent MOM, and WorldACD questioned whether this could the the “first consequences of Trump’s trade war?”.
The first three quarters of 2018 showed 2.8 per cent volume growth YOY, accompanied by a yield increase of 14.2 per cent in USD and of 6.6 per cent when measured in Euros.
Whilst the origin region Central & South America stood out for its 11 per cent volume increase, Europe noted the best YOY revenue performance (+21 per cent when measured in USD, + 13 per cent in Euros). Europe was also the fastest growing destination (+5.4 per cent in volume YOY).
WorldACD reports to underscore the importance of the transport of specific products – all special product categories outperformed general cargo, with pharmaceuticals, express and live animals still recording double-digit growth.
