IATA: The improvement in air freight demand rates in February increased by 2.9%, higher than pre-pandemic levels.

The International Air Transport Association (IATA) revealed the latest air freight data in global markets for the month of February 2023, which showed an improvement in air freight demand rates that exceeded pre-pandemic levels.

Global demand, measured in freight tonne kilometres, declined by 7.5% compared to February 2022. This was half the annual rate of decline recorded in the previous two months. While the demand for air freight in February recorded 2.9%, which is higher than pre-pandemic levels (February 2019), and this is the first time that demand has exceeded pre-pandemic levels during the past eight months.

Capacity, which is measured in freight tonne kilometres, increased by 8.6% from its average in February 2022, and reflects the significant rise in freight tonne kilometres, with increased cargo belly capacity in the recovering passenger airline market. Abdominal capacity increased by 57.0% year-on-year, reaching 75.1% of pre-pandemic levels in 2019.

There are a number of important factors affecting the operating environment, namely:

The global new export orders factor in the Purchasing Managers’ Index (PMI), a leading indicator of demand for goods, increased in February. China’s purchasing managers’ index exceeded 50 points, which indicates that the demand for manufactured goods from the largest exporting economy is increasing.

– Global commodity trade also witnessed a decline of 1.5% in January, which was lower than the previous month’s rate of 3.3%.

– The consumer price index in the seven industrialized countries decreased from 6.7% in January to 6.4% in February. Producer price inflation slowed by 20.2 percentage points to 9.6% in December, according to the latest available data.

Territory

Middle East airlines recorded an 8.1% year-on-year decline in freight volumes in February 2023, which is a slight improvement over the previous month (-11.8%), while capacity increased 9.3% compared to February 2022.

Commenting on this topic, Willie Walsh, Director General of the International Air Transport Association (IATA), said: “It can be said that the broad headline of air freight in February is the slowing decline. On an annual basis, demand fell by 7.5%, half of the rate of decline in January. This shift was enough to take the industry overall into positive territory (+2.9%) compared to pre-pandemic levels, and an optimistic outlook can see the start of improvement leading to market stabilization, and a return to more normal demand patterns after the dramatic ups and downs of recent years.” .