Mideast airlines’ freight volumes decline 8% in September, says IATA

Middle Eastern airlines’ freight volumes decreased 8% in September compared to the year-ago period as a result of escalating trade tensions and the slowing in global trade, IATA has said in a report.

“This was the sharpest drop in freight demand of any region. Capacity decreased by 0.4%,” the International Air Transport Association said in its latest data on global air freight issued yesterday.

Most key routes to and from the region have seen weak demand in the past few months. The large Europe-to-Middle East and Asia-to-Middle East routes were down 8% and 5% respectively in August (last data available) compared to a year ago.

Besides the Middle East, airlines in Asia-Pacific, Europe and North America suffered sharp declines in year-on-year growth in total air freight volumes in September 2019, while Latin America carriers experienced a more moderate decline.

Africa was the only region to record growth in air freight demand compared to September last year.

IATA’s data for global air freight markets showed that demand, measured in freight tonne kilometres (FTKs), decreased by 4.5% in September, compared to the same period in 2018. This marks the eleventh consecutive month of year-on-year decline in freight volumes, the longest period since the global financial crisis in 2008.

Freight capacity, measured in available freight tonne kilometres (AFTKs), rose by 2.1% year-onyear in September 2019. Capacity growth has now outstripped demand growth for the 17th consecutive month.

Air cargo continues to suffer from the intensifying trade war between the US and China, and South Korea and Japan, deterioration in global trade and weakness in some of the key economic drivers.

Global export orders continue to fall. The Purchasing Managers Index (PMI) tracking new manufacturing export orders has pointed to falling orders since September 2018.

IATA’s director general and CEO Alexandre de Juniac said, “The US-China trade war continues to take its toll on the air cargo industry. October’s pause on tariff hikes between Washington and Beijing is good news.

“But trillions of dollars of trade is already affected, which helped fuel September’s 4.5% yearon-year fall in demand. And we can expect the tough business environment for air cargo to continue.”