AsiaPac and North American origin cargo drives September surge

Air cargo’s worldwide dollar revenues grew six per cent in September, spurred on by the origin markets of Asia Pacific (+7.7 per cent) and North America (+6.6 per cent), says independent research house WorldACD.
Netherlands-based WorldACD, using primary data supplied from airlines, added that while global air cargo volumes increased 6.6 per cent in September, yields dropped 0.6 per cent. That was despite yield growth in Europe and the Middle East & South Asia (MESA).
Revenues from the transport of perishables and pharmaceuticals increased by nine per cent and 16 per cent year on year (YoY), enlarging their market share of worldwide revenues: from 8.1 to 8.4 per cent for perishables, and from 3.2 to 3.5 per cent for pharma.
Said WorldACD: “Among the thirty largest country pairs, the star performers in September (YoY) were Germany-South Africa (+67 per cent), China East–US Midwest (+58 per cent) and Japan–US Midwest (+45 per cent).
“The overall September performance was pretty much in line with earlier months, so that the year-to-date figures were further solidified.”
Myanmar, Bahrain, Vietnam, Mauritius, Benin, Slovakia and Morocco registered a more than 20 per cent growth in dollar-revenues for the year so far, inbound and outbound combined.
WorldACD added that while some pundits label Europe the “sick old man of the air cargo world,” analysis of the region’s dollar revenues for  the first nine months of 2014 came up with a “surprise”.
“Origin Europe tops the revenue growth charts, showing a very healthy 7.8 per cent growth YoY. Compared with 2011, the growth was 1.2 per cent, the best of all regions except MESA.
“Europe also came out on top when talking revenues in Euros. Europe is the only origin region showing a YoY yield improvement to all other regions.
“All other regions show yield decreases YoY, making Europe the origin that is single-handedly responsible for the fact that worldwide dollar-yields hardly dropped over the first three quarters.”
The bad news, said WorldACD, is that destination Europe presents a different picture, with the largest revenue drop compared to three years ago (-13.7 per cent), whilst the growth compared to last year was smaller than the worldwide average.