American Cargo Monthly: Strong start to 2017 for United and American

US airlines American and United have got off to a flying start on the cargo front in 2017 with double-digit increases in demand, while Delta continues to see its performance diverge from its two main rivals.
The largest of the airlines in cargo terms, United, recorded a 16.1% year-on-year traffic increase to 234m cargo ton miles (CTM).
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The impressive start to the year follows on from the airline’s strong finish to 2016, which saw it record a 7.3% improvement in cargo demand to 2.8bn CTM.
American Airlines also recorded a strong start to the year, with cargo demand increasing by 15.1% in January to 191m CTM.
This follows on from a 4.7% annual improvement in traffic last year to 2.4bn CTM.
Meanwhile, Delta Air Lines continued to see its cargo performance diverge from that of its rivals as it registered a 5.9% decline in traffic to 150m CTM.
It is now approaching two years since the airline managed to post a year-on-year increase in its monthly cargo figures.
In South America, there was mixed news for the LATAM Group of airlines, as demand decreased but load factors improved.
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In January, the airline group saw cargo demand decrease by 2.4% year on year – its 27^th year on year decline in a row – but its cargo capacity was down by the larger amount of 5.9%.
As a result, the airline group’s cargo load factor improved to 51.8% compared with 49.9% in January 2016. This is the fourth month in a row its load factor has been ahead of the year-ago level.