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Worldwide air cargo volumes rose 1.1% in February and 0.9% in January-February, largely on the back of strong Asian exports
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The sub-regions China and northeast Asia in particular showed solid year-on-year growth in exports with 46% and 24%, respectively
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Asia-Pacific’s air cargo output grew by 19% in January-February 2021 from the same period in 2020, by 14% versus 2019, and by 6% versus 2018
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In imports, Asia-Pacific was 7% above 2020, 2% above 2019, but 4% below 2018
Worldwide air cargo volumes rose 1.1% in February year-on-year, largely on strong exports from Asia-Pacific, according to new data from WorldACD.
For January and February together, global volume was up by +0.9%. Due to the annually changing dates of the Chinese New Year, the two months are often reviewed together.
By region, Asia-Pacific continued to show its increasing importance in world trade. The sub-regions China and northeast Asia in particular showed solid year-on-year growth in air cargo exports of 46% and 24%, respectively. Only the sub-region Australasia & the Pacific contracted with a 26% year-on-year decline.
WorldACD also reviewed the region’s performance over a longer period, comparing the period January-February 2021 with the corresponding periods in the past three years.
Comparatively, the entire Asia-Pacific region’s air cargo output grew by 19% from the same period in 2020, by 14% versus 2019, and by 6% versus the bumper year 2018.
In imports, Asia-Pacific was 7% above 2020, 2% above 2019, but 4% below 2018. It is noteworthy that the business intra-Asia Pacific grows much less than the exports to other regions, said WorldACD.
For the other regions, hardest hit were South Asia, with a decrease of around 24% versus each of the three earlier years, North Africa (-23% year-over-year), Southern Africa (-20% year-over-year), the Gulf Area (-17% year-over-year) and Canada (-16% year-over-year).
For the other 19 sub-regions, apart from three small sub-regions (Central Africa, Mexico and Central Asia), all showed a decrease in outgoing business in 2021 compared to each of the three foregoing years.
Meanwhile, air cargo is not only about business from Shanghai and Hong Kong, important though these markets may be, said WorldACD.
Of the larger 15 city-to-city markets growing by more than 100% year-on-year in January-February, only two had Shanghai as their origin, and one had Hong Kong.
The 12 other markets had diverse origin cities, including Paris, Liege, Nairobi, Beirut, Los Angeles and New York. The highest month-over-month volume growth was recorded in the market from Japan to the US Midwest.
In terms of type of cargo, vulnerable cargo & high tech showed the strongest growth with a year-on-year expansion of 29%. These categories not only clearly outpace the market as a whole, but also score much better than all other large special cargo categories, including pharmaceuticals, which were all negative year-over-year.
From Asia-Pacific, the high-tech segment increased by more 25% year-on-year in each regional direction, fueled by the worldwide demand for work-from-home devices.
Photo by Denisse Leon on Unsplash
