Air cargo volume increased by 2.5% year over year in April, but the improvement may have been less stellar than it appeared, according to WorldACD Market Data. One extra weekend (typically good for air cargo volumes) and the absence of a negative “Easter effect” in the month likely account for all the monthly growth.
For the first quarter of 2016, air cargo volumes dropped by 0.9% worldwide. Volumes rose 0.3% in January but fell 3.8% in February and 1.9% in March. The February decline was the largest year-over-year decline in three years.
Yields, which are equal to the average price paid by customers to transport one ton a distance of one mile, dropped 15.3% year over year in April, the smallest decline since last May. Yields fell 0.5% month over month.
General cargo volumes rose 1.4% in April and 6% in the non-general category that includes perishables and pharmaceuticals. Shipment volumes of perishables rose 4.8% and pharmaceutical shipments rose 12.3% year over year. Perishables shipments rose 14% from North America and pharmaceuticals shipments originating in the Middle East and South Asia rose by 16.6%.
The WorldACD researchers also noted changing patterns in volumes carried over various distances. They sliced the data by short (up to 4,000 km), medium (4,000 to 8,000 km) and long (more than 8,000 km):
Carriers from MESA [Middle East and South Asia], Asia Pacific and Africa were the ones growing as a group in Q1-2016 compared to the same period in 2014. MESA carriers on average gained in all three distance segments, least in short haul and most in long haul, for an overall volume growth of 14%. The same was true for carriers from Asia Pacific, but for a more modest overall growth of 4%. All three carrier groups grew stronger in markets between third countries than in markets to/from their home countries. MESA and AsPac carriers seem to rely more on these third country markets (resp. 68% and 40% of their total volumes) than African carriers (26%).
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