May was not such a merry month for air cargo

May was another month of “disappointment” for air cargo as demand growth was “limited to 0.5%”, according to WorldACD.
The analyst said it was hardly surprised by the low growth figure given that “world trade is in a slump”. During the month, volumes originating from North America declined by 4% year on year, whereas the Middle East and South Asia (MESA) grew by 4%
Yields in US dollar terms dropped by 1.9% compared with April.
For the year-to-date yields are down at double-digit levels on a year earlier, but there are some routes seeing price increases.
“In spite of a general US dollar-yield decline of 16% worldwide compared to the first five months of 2015, some of the larger traffic flows did very well in terms of yields. On Bogota-Miami and Quito-Miami yields improved in 2016 so far,” the analyst said.
WorldACD also took the opportunity to examine the airfreight performance of the leading freight forwarders.
It said the top 100 forwarders are made up of 12 European, four Japanese, three US and one MESA forwarder, with a joint market share of 43%.
The Top-10 show a joint market share of 35%, with individual shares ranging from 8.5% to 1.5%, realised – in descending order – by DHL, K&N, Schenker, Expeditors, Panalpina, UPS, Nippon Express, DSV/UTi, Kintetsu and CEVA.

“We note that the combined market share of the world’s Top-20 differs greatly from one market to another,” WorldACD said.
“Strongly concentrated markets are Germany, Japan, US Midwest, France and Singapore, with shares of the worldwide Top-20 ranging between 60 and 67%.

“On the other side of the spectrum figure the highly dispersed markets of India, South East China and the United Arab Emirates (UAE), where the world’s Top-20 have a combined share of (much) less than 30%.
“These three markets are dominated by local or regional forwarders from outside the World’s Top-100.”