Air cargo volumes up 6% in June

Air cargo volumes in the last week of June were 12% higher than in the final week of May, as the sector showed tentative signs of recovery.According to CLIVE Data Services global air cargo volumes in June were up 6% compared to May. However global volumes were down 25% compared to June 2019, while May was down 31% year-on-year.

Available capacity during this period remained flat, however, the last two weeks of June saw capacity growing slowly week-over-week by around 1.5% per week.

Niall van de Wouw, managing director at CLIVE, said: “As governments around the world acted to protect their societies, they became unlikely (price-insensitive) customers of international air cargo capacity for urgent supplies of PPE.

“While our data for May and now June has shown month-on-month improvements, and airlines have been reporting peak weeks and months for cargo, the big question has been ‘what happens when PPE volumes dry up?’. Now the noise of PPE is starting to fade, we can see where the industry is really at – and we do see an improvement.

“Our June analyses seems to suggest the first steps towards a structural market recovery. Despite the decreasing demand for PPE in June, we still see that the volumes increased over May. We are starting to see a more recognisable airfreight market following more logical economic principles and more logical rates.

“The dynamic load-factor in June was at a level we did not even see during normal peak Christmas periods, resulting in yields that are still well above the 2019 levels.”

He added: “The next test will be how an influx of ‘normal’ passenger flights, which are not driven by cargo demand, will impact dynamic load-factor.”