[101112.EN.AIR] IATA: World Air Cargo Growth Continues To Slow As September Demand Weakens

GLOBAL air cargo traffic growth continued to slow, gaining 0.6 per cent year on year together with world passenger volume, which slowed to a four per cent gain in September, according to the International Air Transport Association (IATA).

Passenger traffic, while up, was lower than the 5.3 per cent year-on-year growth experienced in August and even lower compared to the six per cent average growth throughout the first half of the year.

Air cargo performance represented the second month-to-month growth decline, eroding the stability in volumes achieved earlier in 2012. Capacity in September was trimmed 0.6 per cent compared to the same period in 2011, strengthening the freight load factor to 45.6 per cent from 45.1 per cent a year ago.

European airlines experienced 5.4 per cent growth on international services when compared to September 2011, the strongest performance among the major regions despite a recession in Europe. The Asia-Pacific was one of the weakest regions as demand increased 1.7 per cent year on year.

International traffic for North American airlines climbed 2.1 per cent in September while capacity declined 0.2 per cent, with the load factor reaching 84.6 per cent, the highest for any region and a two per cent rise over September 2011. Traffic for African airlines climbed 4.7 per cent year on year on a three per cent rise in capacity.

Carriers in the Middle East and Latin America posted by far the strongest traffic growth in September. Demand was up 13.3 per cent year on year in the Middle East while Latin American airlines posted a growth of 7.5 per cent year on year. Compared to August, traffic rose 2.7 per cent in Latin America, the strongest month-to-month performance for any region.

"A two-speed recovery is emerging into a multi-speed reality," said IATA CEO Tony Tyler, former CEO of Hong Kong Cathay Pacific Airways. "Carriers in China, Latin America and the Middle East are growing strongly. Europe's airlines are experiencing profitless growth in a strategy to manage high fixed costs and taxes. In Africa the challenge is to turn growth into profit. But for North American airlines the focus is on tightly managing capacity in order to optimise profits in a slow- to no-growth environment."

Source : HKSG.