BAKU, Azerbaijan, April 30
By Sadraddin Agjayev – Trend:
The worldwide air cargo traffic significantly dropped in March amid the COVID-19 pandemic, Trend reports referring to the International Air Transport Association (IATA).
According to the source, industry-wide cargo ton kilometers (CTKs) - combine volume of cargo tons and distance in kilometers - decreased in March 2020, as the COVID-19 outbreak extended to become a global pandemic.
“COVID-19’s impact on the global air cargo volumes became more apparent in March, as CTKs dropped by 15.2 percent year-on-year. The air cargo volumes have been weakening since November 2018 due to global trade tensions (especially between the US and China),” the source said.
“CTKs have fallen in annual terms for 12 consecutive months now – the longest recession since the global financial crisis in 2008,” noted the source. “In seasonal terms, industry-wide CTKs dropped further in March 2020 by 2.8 percent month-on-month after the largest monthly decline by 9.3 percent seen in the history.”
According to IATA, in Europe and North America a total of 18-percent annual decrease was recorded. The drop in Africa by 2.1 percent was relatively moderate compared with other regions, as the full lock-down of the aviation market in that region took place in the end of March.
Following the sharp decline in February – which exceeded that of the global financial crisis – the air cargo traffic grew slightly in March. This improvement was due to the stabilization of the external economic situation in China. Disregarding such improvement, the global index fell to its lowest level since May 2009.
The cancellation of passenger flights in March also affected volumes of international cargo traffic. Although some airlines have assigned passenger aircrafts to cargo-only flights, the international air traffic volumes continued their decline (up to 43.7 percent in year-on-year terms in March).
“On the other hand, dedicated freighters continued to increase their capacity in March at a similar pace (6.2 percent year-on-year) to February. As a result, the share of cargo traffic in total international traffic capacity declined to 46 percent from 65 percent in March 2019,” the source said.
Overall, international cargo capacity reduced by 24.6 percent in year-on-year terms.
“The Asian market of air cargo traffic was the only commercial market which continued to show growth in March, with volumes up almost 10 percent year-on-year”, the association added.
IATA is a trade association of the world's airlines. It consists of 290 airlines, primarily major carriers, representing 117 countries.
The association is headquartered in Canada in the city of Montreal, with Executive Offices in Geneva, Switzerland.
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