News
- IATA News
- 4/29/2010
- Air Updates
• IATA Demand Improvements Continue in March
IATA announced that March 2010 international scheduled air traffic showed continued strengthening of demand. Compared to March 2009, cargo demand grew 28.1%. These are strong gains, but the data is being compared to March 2009, which was the low point for international air travel during the recession. IATA noted that the International Monetary Fund revised global GDP growth forecasts from 3.0% to 4.3% for 2010. International freight markets are also experiencing tighter supply and demand conditions. The 28.1% improvement in demand outpaced the 5.3% capacity expansion in March. This drove freight load factors to 57.1% - the highest since November 2002 when international freight load factors stood at 58.8%.
International Cargo Demand
• Global air freight is now within 1% point of recovering to its previous high point of early 2008. International air freight volumes shrank by over one quarter during the second half of 2008. The upturn in the business inventory cycle has almost eliminated that decline, although the upturn for international air freight has taken twice as long as the collapse.
• Despite the sluggish US economy, North American carriers have seen an international freight rebound (+32.2%). Both export and import volumes are very strong in the emerging economies of Asia-Pacific (+34.1%) and in Latin America which recorded the strongest growth at 47.9%.
• European carriers showed the weakest improvement in freight demand at 11.7%, largely due to the slow economic recovery in the region.
The strong traffic recovery is expected to show a dip in April as a result of the eruption of the Icelandic volcano in April that saw the shutdown of large portions of European airspace over a six-day period.
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