Geneva - The International Air Transport Association (IATA) released data for July 2023 global air cargo markets, showing a continuing trend of recovering growth rates since February. July air cargo demand was tracking just 0.8% below the previous year’s levels. Although demand is now basically flat compared to 2022, this is an improvement on recent months’ performance that is particularly significant given declines in global trade volumes and rising concerns over China’s economy.
Global demand, measured in cargo tonne-kilometers (CTKs*), tracked at 0.8% below July 2022 levels (-0.4% for international operations). This was a significant improvement over the previous month’s performance (-3.4%).
Capacity, measured in available cargo tonne-kilometers (ACTKs), was up 11.2% compared to July 2022 (8% for international operations). The strong uptick in ACTKs reflects the growth in belly capacity (29.3% year-on-year) due to the summer season.
Several factors in the operating environment should be noted:
In July, both the manufacturing output Purchasing Managers Index or PMI (49.0) and new export orders PMI (46.4) were below the critical threshold represented by the 50 mark, indicating a decline in global manufacturing production and exports.
Global cross-border trade contracted for the third month in a row in June, decreasing 2.5% year-over-year, reflecting the cooling demand environment and challenging macroeconomic conditions. The difference between the annual growth rates of air cargo and the global goods trade narrowed to -0.8 percentage points in June. While air cargo growth is still lagging world trade, the gap is the narrowest since January 2022. Read More→
https://www.iata.org/en/pressroom/2023-releases/2023-09-05-01/
