The International Air Transport Association (IATA), which is the global representative body for the airline industry, has reported that the year-on-year (y-o-y) decline in air cargo demand decelerated over the first five months of this year. In January, the y-o-y drop had been 16.8%, but in May it was 5.2%, giving a year-to-date (in May) fall of 9%. Perhaps ironically, May’s y-o-y decline was slightly worse than the equivalent figure for April, which had been 5%. (In comparison to May 2019, which was before the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic, last May’s demand was down 7%.)

In terms of air cargo capacity, this continued to increase, rising 14.5%, y-o-y, in May. Capacity returned to pre-pandemic levels in April and in May was 5.9% above the levels of May 2019. This growth in capacity was mainly the result of the growth in airliner belly-hold cargo volumes, as a result of the restoration of air passenger traffic. In May, belly-hold capacity jumped by 40.5%, y-o-y, while dedicated freighter aircraft capacity increased by just 1.6%. Airliner belly-hold capacity exceeded dedicated freighter aircraft capacity by 4.6% in May.   

International air cargo traffic represented 86.9% of total air cargo demand. The y-o-y decrease in international air cargo demand in May had been 6%. In comparison to May 2019, international air cargo demand was down 7.1%. The main cause of the decline remained the reduced demand experienced by North American and European carriers.

In terms of regions, the only one which recorded a y-o-y increase in demand was Latin America, which saw a rise of 3.8%. (In April, the region had recorded a y-o-y decline of 1%.) The least worse performing region in May was Africa, with a contraction of 2.4%, but in April this region had recorded a y-o-y reduction of 1.4%, meaning that, in May, Africa registered a month-on-month decline of 0.9%.

The two regions which saw the worst y-o-y performance in May were North America, with a drop of 7.5%, and Europe, down 7.2%. But in both cases these figures were improvements over their y-o-y performances in April, when North America had fallen 11.5% and Europe had dropped 8.3%.

Of IATA’s other two regions, the Middle East’s May y-o-y decline of 3.1% was again much better than the equivalent figure for April, which had been a fall of 6.7%. But the Asia-Pacific’s May y-o-y figure (down 6.4%) was notably worse than its equivalent figure for April (a decrease of 3.5%).