Presenting the International Air Transport Association (IATA) industry outlook at IATA’s Global Media Day in Geneva in December 2019, IATA’s chief economist Brian Pearce said: “Cargo is a leading indicator of how the industry is performing, and in 2019 we had a pretty miserable year.”
Global air cargo markets have had an extremely tough time in 2019 as a result of the trade war. Air freight demand, measured in freight tonne kilometers (FTKs), contracted by around 5 percent, the worst performance since the 2008-9 global financial crisis. Cargo traffic turned negative for the first time since 2012. Freight carriage, meanwhile, slipped to 61.2 million tonnes from 63.3 million tonnes in 2018. Cargo traffic is expected to rebound moderately with 2 percent growth in 2020, with tonnes forecast to reach 62.4 million, which is still below the 2018 result. According to IATA, yields will continue to slide with a 3 percent decline forecast for 2020, an improvement from a 5 percent decline in 2019. Cargo revenues will slip for a third year in 2020 with revenues expected to total $101.2 billion, down 1.1 percent from 2019.
“Demand is set to decline in 2019 overall — the weakest annual outcome since the global financial crisis," said Alexandre de Juniac, CEO, IATA CEO. "It has been a very tough year for the air cargo industry,” the IATA chief added.
This story is from the January 2020 edition of The STAT Trade Times.
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This story is from the January 2020 edition of The STAT Trade Times.
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