Air cargo demand in Asia-Pacific stays flat, below global average

Antonov An-225 Mriya, a cargo plane which is the world's biggest aircraft, takes off from the Vaclav Havel Airport for its first commercial flight from Prague to Perth, in Prague, Czech Republic, May 12, 2016. REUTERS/David W Cerny

KUALA LUMPUR: Asia-Pacific airlines saw basically flat demand for air cargo in April with a 0.1% increase compared to the same month last year.

The International Air Transport Association (IATA) said in a statement that global air freight markets, meanwhile, showed a 3.2% year-on-year growth in demand measured in freight tonne kilometres (FTKs).

Asia-Pacific saw the smallest growth in air cargo demand after Latin America (a 5.9% drop in demand) and Africa (zero growth) last month. However, the region’s latest growth figure was an improvement over the 5.2% decline recorded in March and the 12.4% contraction seen in February.

The strongest growth in April occurred in the Middle East and Europe, with demand up by 7.7% and 6.8%, respectively.

“While growth (globally) appears to be stronger than in the preceding months of 2016, this is largely due to the disappearance from the comparison data of distorting factors associated with the 2015 strike at seaports on the US West Coast,” IATA said.

Overall, the demand for air cargo remains soft and lags behind the relatively robust growth on the passenger side of the business.

Asia-Pacific recorded a 7.3% growth in revenue passenger kilometres (RPKs) in April, higher than the 4.6% growth in global passenger demand.

The disruptive impact of the Brussels Airport attack weighed on the April figures, IATA said. It estimated that, absent the impact of the attacks, global demand growth would have been about 5%.