Freight volumes stagnated in July with volumes growing by 0.2 per cent worldwide, with large increases in Africa not being able to make up for slowdowns in countries including China, according to Airports Council International (ACI).
In Africa, freight increased by 15.8 per cent year-on-year (YOY) in July, but the Middle East fell by 0.9 per cent in the same month. Asia Pacific saw no growth while Latin America-Caribbean and North America both saw increases of 0.1 per cent and Europe was up by 0.3 per cent. ACI says China and oil producing nations have suffered slowdowns, which has affected hubs in Asia.
ACI says: “The strong correlation between changes in airfreight volumes and the business cycle coupled with the fact that a high concentration of the world’s major airfreight hubs are located in the Asia Pacific region has inevitably resulted in a slowdown.”
Hong Kong International Airport is one of the airports suffering from a weak July. It saw cargo volumes fall by 1.9 per cent YOY to 363,000 tonnes in July, which the airport says is because of falling transshipments, exports and cargo throughput to and from China, Taiwan and Europe underperforming.
ACI says North America has been mixed, with Memphis International Airport, a FedEx hub and Louisville International Airport, a UPS base, have seen growth, while Anchorage Ted Stevens International Airport and Miami International Airport have both declined.
In July, Memphis saw a YOY increase of 2.5 per cent to 364,224 tonnes. ACI says Louisville saw a YOY increase of 4.2 per cent but the airport did not have any tonnage figures available. Miami saw freight fall by 2.3 per cent in July to 169,553 tonnes.ACI says Anchorage saw freight fell by 5.6 per cent but the airport did not have any figures tonnage available.
The year-to-date figures have been more positive, worldwide freight was up by 2.9 per cent. Africa saw the largest increase, up by 11.5 per cent, followed by the Middle East, at 7.2 per cent. North America was up by 4.3 per cent while Asia Pacific saw an increase of 2.4 per cent. Latin America-Caribbean was up by 0.8 per cent while Europe saw the smallest increase, up by 0.5 per cent.
