World ACD: Global airfreight market grows for third straight month

Cargo shipments grew 2.3 percent in August 2016 compared with the same 2015 period, following revised year-over-year increases of 3 percent and 1.8 percent, respectively, in June and July, according to industry analyst World ACD.    Global airfreight volumes grew for the third straight month in August 2016, rising 2.3 percent from the previous year, according to the latest figures from industry analyst World ACD.
   The August growth followed revised increases of 3 percent in June and 1.8 percent in July compared with the same 2015 period.
   World ACD said despite the improvement from the early part of the year, which saw several months of declining volumes, the summer growth figures “still fail to impress.”
   “And with so many economies still stuttering, could one realistically hope for much higher growth?” the firm asked in its monthly report.
   Yields, measured in U.S. dollars, remained steady, ticking up 0.5 percent from July 2016. The Africa and Central and South America origin regions did not contribute to August volume growth, but yields for those origins were relatively close to 2015 levels, according to World ACD.
   In terms of products shipped, most categories grew at about the same rate in August, with the exception of pharmaceuticals, which grew about 10 percent from the previous year.
   In addition, the firm introduced a new air cargo volume metric after studying the difference between the reporting methods of the International Air Transport Association (IATA) and its own.
   The new measurement, Direct Tonne Kilometers (DTK), is designed to bridge the gap between reporting shipment volumes in kilograms and Freight Tonne Kilometers (FTKs) used by IATA, according to World ACD.
   DTK measurement combines kilograms with the shortest distance between an origin and destination (O&D), allowing analysts to see to what extent markets may be shifting between short and long hauls.
   “Reporting in kilograms is the better indicator for knowing the amount of goods being transported by air, on an aggregate level but also per individual market (“O&D”),” the firm explained. “FTK’s, on the other hand, are the better indicator for knowing the resultant of weight carried and distance flown.
   “However, changes in FTK’s are in themselves a combination of two elements: changes in volumes per O&D, but also changes in operational patterns. After all, it makes a difference in FTK’s whether a carrier serves a market directly, i.e. via the shortest possible route, or indirectly, e.g. via its hub. Thus, an increase in FTK’s could be (partly) caused just by more indirect carriers entering a given market.
   “In other words, neither FTK’s nor kg-data, nor the combination of the two, provide a clear answer to the question to what extent an aggregated number of individual markets may have experienced a shift from long(er) haul to short(er) haul.”
   According to WorldACD, DTKs in July 2016 grew 3.4 percent year-over-year, compared with just 1.8 percent growth in kilogram volume figures.
   “These figures combined tell us two things,” the firm wrote. “They lend credibility to the fact that the July-data provided by IATA and WorldACD were quite divergent. But they also tell us the exact size of the shift towards long(er) distance markets: of the total DTK-growth of 3.4 percent, only 1.8 percent was due to weight growth, so 1.6 percent was caused by the change in O&D’s reported.”