Middle Eastern carriers saw the strongest cargo growth worldwide with demand (measured in freight tonne kilometres or FTKs) expanding by 10.4 per cent, and capacity rising 14.3 per cent during August, according to data released by the International Air Transport Association (Iata).

Although some economies in the region have suffered a slowdown in non-oil growth, overall expansion remains robust enough to sustain solid growth in air freight, Iata said.

African carriers experienced growth in demand of 2.3 per cent, and capacity rose by 10.6 per cent. Nigeria and South Africa, the largest economies in the region, have underperformed. Regional trade, however, has held up, and generated increases in air freight volumes.

Globally, air cargo volumes rose 0.2 per cent compared to the same month a year ago. This is a modest improvement on July performance when freight demand contracted by 0.6 per cent year-over-year, said the Iata report.

The most significant negative impact on the global performance was by Asia-Pacific based airlines (-1.0 per cent); and those in North America (-3.3 per cent) and Latin America (-7.3 per cent). All regions reported capacity expansions ahead of growth in demand.

"After declines in June and July, signs of a stabilization in air cargo are welcome. But all is not well. Total volumes are down 2 per cent compared to the end of 2014,” said Tony Tyler, Iata’s director general and CEO.

“And some of the key reasons for the earlier weakness – for example, downgraded growth expectations in emerging Asia, and the rebalancing of the Chinese economy toward domestic consumption – are still there. Even though world trade volumes have slightly picked up, the industry will have to work hard to match the strong finish to 2014,"he added.
 
Asia-Pacific carriers saw a fall in FTKs of 1.0 per cent in August compared to August 2014, and capacity expanded 4.9 per cent, while European carriers reported a rise in demand in August of 0.7 per cent compared to a year ago and capacity rose 3.9 per cent. Recent improvements in manufacturing business activity seem to be finally feeding through to support air freight demand.

North American airlines experienced a decline of 3.3 per cent year-on-year and capacity grew 4.4 per cent and Latin American airlines reported a decline in demand of 7.3 per cent year-on-year, and capacity expanded 0.8 per cent. – TradeArabia News Service