The air passenger market grew nearly 5% in December last year and freight had shown some signs of recovery in late 2019, but the coronavirus is pushing the industry into another volatile year in 2020, according to Airports Council International (ACI) World.
ACI reported that global passenger traffic grew by +4.9% last December compared to December 2018, a positive end to a challenging 2019 that came just as the effects of the ongoing COVID-19 outbreak started to appear in traffic results in 2020.
A preliminary sample of major commercial airports’ data indicates that airports experienced +3.4% growth in total passenger traffic in 2019, continuing a moderation trend compared to 2018’s +6.4%.
The freight industry’s end-of-year results stood at -2.5%, close to six percentage points below the +3.4% figure posted in 2018. While a slow recovery in freight volumes had begun in the last three months of the year, that uptrend will be affected by the ongoing global public health emergency.
“With ongoing trade wars and rising geopolitical tension in the Middle East, the global environment in 2019 was certainly challenging for air transport,” ACI World director general Angela Gittens said.
“Though a recovery for the freight industry was starting to emerge in the later part of the year, we now face a health crisis that could stifle the uptrend and lead us into another volatile year in 2020.”
She further warned: “The developing situation may not be a momentary shock to the air transport industry; rather it has the potential to produce a significant shift in this year’s global economic growth trend.”
In December 2019, the domestic market posted a strong +4.9% growth rate, equal to that of the international market. The international market remained the main driver of the industry for the full year, however, posting a +4.1% growth figure. The domestic market stood at +2.8% for the same period.
Asia-Pacific departed from the moderating trend of prior months in December, gaining +6.0% year-over-year, with the region’s international and domestic segments both performing well. The regional market remained in line with the world average for full-year growth, at +3.0%.
For freight, the domestic segment saw a surge of six percentage points in December, reaching +4.5% on a year-over-year basis. The segment’s year-end results reached +1.3%. International freight remained in the negative during the month, posting a -2.1% decline. The year-end results for the segment stood at -4.1%.
Though Asia-Pacific posted a +1.4% gain in December, its preliminary year-end results remained quite far below other major markets, at -4.3%.
“The month’s figures may be showing the calm before the storm,” Gittens said. “Though forecasts on global economic growth in 2020 had originally predicted a recovery from 2019’s weaker performance, the sudden shock represented by the COVID-19 outbreak could stifle that recovery and prolong the period of downward pressure on the air freight industry.”
ACI collects and analyzes data from a significant sample of airports that provide regular reports on month-by-month passenger and air freight statistics.
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