World airfreight loses its bounce as China falters

The normal summer bounce in the world airfreight market failed to materialise this year, due largely to the faltering Chinese economy, said market data specialist WorldACD in its latest report.
July was flat with only 0.7% volume growth, the lowest of any month this year, and revenue figures were also the worst reported for 2015. In previous years, July was much better than June, but not this year, said Netherlands-based WorldACD.
Africa was the fastest growing origin, up 6.2% in volume thanks to increased business to the Middle East and South Asia (MESA) and within the continent. Europe was second, with a 2.7% volume increase, mainly fuelled by growth to destinations in Asia Pacific other than China. Latin America remained in the doldrums.
Yields including charges (in US dollars) dropped again by 1.8% compared with the previous month.
For originating cargo, China and Hong Kong (CN/HK) combined were outperformed by the rest of the world (RoW) on a year on year (YoY) basis; for the last 12 months: CN/HK was up 3.1%, RoW +4.5%; for the 12 months before that CN/HK grew 7.9%, RoW 5.5%; and for the last nine months, CN/HK was up 1.8%, but RoW was up 3.8%.
In terms of compound growth in outbound volumes over the past three year, the Pearl River Delta (China southeast +37% and HK +4%) did much better than the Shanghai area, which was flat and the northeast: the latter actually experienced a decline over the full period. The west was not at all affected by the country’s recent slump, recording a compound growth of 81%, albeit from a modest base. Its contribution to China’s outbound total grew from 6% to 10% in three years.
In terms of destinations served from China, North America kept growing in 2015 while Europe dwindled, trends already noted for 2012. MESA, and in particular South Asia, showed continuing growth ex China.
Inbound volumes into CN/HK over the past nine months, at 3.5%, kept pace with the worldwide volume growth of 3.4%, but there were large regional differences, said WorldACD. Volumes to CN/HK from Africa, Europe and MESA all went down, by 22%, 3% and 9.4% respectively but cargo volume originating in the Americas was up by 17.5%.
Volumes from Asia Pacific to CN/HK increased by 7.9%, and was also the strongest growth in absolute terms. This development brought the region’s share of total worldwide volumes to CN/HK up from 36.9% to 38.4%.