January air cargo demand returns to pre-COVID levels for the first time
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The air cargo demand returned to pre-COVID levels in January for the first time since the onset of the crisis, International Air Transport Association (IATA) announced.
January demand also showed strong month-to-month growth over December 2020 levels.
“Air cargo traffic is back to pre-crisis levels and that is some much-needed good news for the global economy. But while there is a strong demand to ship goods, our ability is capped by the shortage of belly capacity normally provided by passenger aircraft,” IATA’s Director General and CEO, Alexandre de Juniac said.
Global demand, measured in cargo tonne-kilometers (CTKs*), was up 1.1.% compared to January 2019 and 3% compared to December 2020. All regions saw month-on-month improvement in air cargo demand, and North America and Africa were the strongest performers.
The recovery in global capacity, measured in available cargo tonne-kilometers (ACTKs), was reversed owing to new capacity cuts on the passenger side. Capacity shrank 19.5% compared to January 2019 and fell 5% compared to December 2020, the first monthly decline since April 2020.
“That should be a sign to governments that they need to share their plans for a restart so that the industry has clarity in terms of how soon more capacity can be brought online. In normal times, a third of world trade by value moves by air,” de Juniac pointed out.
The Asia-Pacific airlines saw demand for international air cargo fall 3.2% in January 2021 compared to the same month in 2019. This was an improvement from the 4.0% fall in December 2020. International capacity remained constrained in the region, down 27.0% versus January 2019, which was a deterioration compared to the 26.2% year-over-year decline recorded in December.
The region’s airlines reported the highest international load factor at 74.0%.
” This high-value commerce is vital to helping restore COVID damaged economies—not to mention the critical role air cargo is playing in distributing lifesaving vaccines that must continue for the foreseeable future,” de Juniac went on to note.
