Chinese cargo crumbles
21 / 07 / 2011
THE nation’s freighter fleet may be expanding but air cargo in China is down in the first half of 2011.
Traffic dropped 0.4 per cent to 2.66 million metric tonnes. Cargo traffic on international routes slid 3.8 per cent, due to the country’s declining exports/imports triggered by the slowdown of domestic economic growth and the sluggish recovery of the global economy, as well as the instability in north Africa. Operations on domestic routes did however increase by 1.4 per cent.
The Civil Aviation Administration of China noted the growth rate was lower than the goal it set for 2011 in January calling for cargo traffic to lift 1.5 per cent to 6.2 million tonnes for the full year.
As of 30 June Chinese carriers operated a collective fleet of 1,657 aircraft, an increase of 60 aircraft over the same date last year.
