Air freight market improves but remains on a downtrend: ACI

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Airports around the world reported an improvement in air freight performance in June with year-over-year volumes declining -11.4% compared to -17.9% in May, according to Airports Council International (ACI) World.

In the first six months of 2020, air freight traffic posted a -12.3% drop year-on-year, and on a global 12-month rolling average, volumes saw a -7.3% drop by the end of the June, continuing their downward trend.

All regions apart from North America recorded significant losses in June with Latin America-Caribbean posting a drop of -28.6%, Africa at -27.0%, and Middle East at -26.3%.

Asia-Pacific and Europe recorded lesser losses with decreases of -16.0% and -15.6%, respectively.

North America saw its total air freight volume come back to positive territory with an increase of 3.9% in June compared to June 2019, mostly thanks to its strong domestic market (+11.7%) that compensated for the losses of -6.4% of its international freight market.

The international air freight markets’ losses eased in June with a decline of -15.2% year-over-year compared to -19.6% in May. Domestic freight volumes also improved and are now at only -2.4% of June 2019 volumes, mostly due to the strong performance of North America domestic market which recorded an increase of 11.7% in June compared to last year.

As for global passenger traffic, all regional markets posted improved global passenger traffic in June compared to May. However, except for Asia-Pacific and North America, all other regions posted declines above -90%.

The recovery of the domestic traffic in North America and Asia-Pacific helped them to record significantly better global traffic volumes in June with declines of -76.9% and -81.2%, respectively, compared to -82.5% and -90.3% in May.

International passenger traffic continued to be virtually halted for a third consecutive month with all regions recording decline above -95% year-over-year for June. The 12-month rolling average for the international segment was recorded at -29.6% and -64.5% for the first six months of 2020.

Besides Asia-Pacific and North America, domestic passenger markets continued to be severely impacted by the pandemic. Africa remains the most effected region with a year-over-year decline of -94.3% in June, while Asia-Pacific, North America and now Europe show signs of improvement with decreases of -63.2%, -78.1% and -81.1% respectively.

Latin America-Caribbean improved in June compared to May but remains severely impacted with decline of -88.3% of its domestic passenger market.

“In the early days of the crisis, there were predictions that June would be the turning point with the recovery of the aviation industry beginning,” ACI World director general Luis Felipe de Oliveira said. “In fact, June results show only a slow recovery in domestic markets in China and the United States while the international passenger segment continued to be practically non-existent, heavily affecting the financial results of the airports and postponing the recovery.”

Photo by Emily Rusch on Unsplash