American Cargo Monthly: LATAM sees load factors improve

LATAM continued to see cargo load factors improve in February, while US carriers American and United recorded strong growth in demand.
The latest carrier figures show that American Airlines Cargo saw cargo demand increased by 9.7% year on year to 191m cargo ton miles (CTM) in February.
This improvement follows on from growth of 15.1% in January and comes in line with its fleet renewal.
There was also an improvement in cargo demand at North America’s largest cargo airline, United, which registered a 20.4% improvement in demand to 235m CTM.
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This is the airline’s sixth monthly double-digit percentage improvement in cargo demand in a row.
There was not such good new at rival Delta, which registered a 4.4% decrease in cargo demand in February to 148m CTM.
The airline has now not registered a year-on-year improvement in cargo demand since February 2015. It is in the process of retiring its B747-400 fleet, a process due to be completed by the end of the year, and will begin to take delivery of A350-900s later this year.
Meanwhile, LATAM Cargo’s moves to reduce cargo capacity to meet challenging economic conditions in South America appears to be paying dividends as the group’s load factor continues to improve.
In February, the airline saw cargo demand decrease by 8.8% to 260m freight tonne kms, but its capacity was down by the larger amount of 12.1%.
As a result its cargo load factor reached 53.3% compared with 51.4% a year earlier. February was the fifth month in a row that the airline has seen its cargo load factor improve on a year ago.
Click here to access the ACN data hub or on the image below for the interactive chart