Combined January-February 2020 worldwide air cargo fell by 2.7% as the impact of the coronavirus on the airline industry became clearer, according to provisional data from WorldACD.
The two-month provisional data came from some 60 airlines, together representing 80% of the total worldwide business in WorldACD’s database, and may be subject to revision, as more data come in.
“Looking at February in isolation leads to an incomplete picture of the state of air cargo. To properly take into account the effects of Chinese New Year (CNY) on our year-over-year figures, one should look at the combined data for January & February,” said the air cargo data service provider in a March 11 release.
Having thus “neutralized” the CNY effect on the individual monthly data, the results shown could well be called the effect of COVID-19, even though this only started to play a role in February, it added.
For the larger origins, not surprisingly, China and Northeast Asia (including Hong Kong) were hardest hit during the two-month period, with year-on-year drops of 7.3% and 7.8%, respectively.
USA was almost neutral, but Western Europe lost 5%.
Surprisingly, South America grew +6.8% year-on-year, while Eastern Europe expanded +4.3% and Southeast Asia +2.3%.
“More than half of the 150 countries in our database showed growth,” said WorldACD.
Meanwhile for February, WorldACD said that “instead of bringing us gloom and doom only, February also surprised with unexpected positive figures.”
For the month alone, overall volume was roughly the same year-on-year, but revenues in US dollars were 5.4% lower. From Asia-Pacific to Europe, revenues were down by 22% year-on-year, while those to North America were down by 14.4% year-on-year.
However, revenues within Asia Pacific were up by 12% year-on-year for February. Outbound China (-26%) showed large differences per region: the North and the Center lost around 50% year-on-year, but the South gained 19%. Last year, cargo volumes from China started picking up roughly seven days after CNY. This year, volumes did not start picking up until 17 days after CNY, and with a much slower buildup.
Notably, from all major areas to Asia-Pacific, yields in February in US dollar terms were much higher than in January, said the report. From Europe to Asia-Pacific, February yields were up by 31%, from North America by 19%, from the Middle East and South Asia by 24%, from Africa by 18%, and from Latin America by 25%. And yet, the overall worldwide yield dropped by 2% month-on-month.
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