Air cargo has been in great demand, revealed the International Air Transport Association. As a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, taking the year 2020 as a reference can be a problem due to distortion.

Therefore, the months of the year 2019 are a more accurate comparative reference, since that year showed normal values. What the comparison of the years 2019 and 2021 showed was a considerable change in the demand for air cargo .

Only in the month of March 2021, compared to March 2019, there was a notable increase of more than 4%, more exactly 4.4%. This is relevant, since since 1990, the start date of these records, it is the highest increase. This brought other surprises:

• It Increases in month-on-month demand

• A small increase of 0.4% compared to February

However, there are still factors that remain below pre-pandemic data: global capacity.

Although global capacity has been recovering little by little over the months, the numbers are still lower than in 2019. To be exact, the increase in March of this year was 5.6%, still remaining below from 2019 levels by 11.4 points.

This is because there are many planes on the ground as a COVID-19 countermeasure, which has led to the use of cargo planes. The use of these aircraft seems to respond well in the international market; In addition, it caused the freighters to increase their capacity by 20.6% during the month of March.

As a result of the above, for March 2021, the cargo capacity in passenger aircraft was reduced by 38%. Thus , air cargo was able to adapt quickly to the world situation, breaking through the challenges it posed for the market.

Regarding the following months, the increase was not only maintained, but also continued to provide relevant data compared to 2019. In April, cargo increased by 11.3% compared to April 2019; and in May it obtained a 9.4% increase compared to 2019.

It was thanks to the increase in North American airlines that May obtained this increase, since only they contributed 4.6% of the 9.4% increase.

Of course, the increase in air cargo is evaluated in the different regions of the world, where each one contributes or not to the demand. What was relevant for each region was the following:

• Pacific Asia

The airlines of this region had increases and decreases, although very relevant in the second case. In the region, in March of this year, there was 20.7% in international capacity, compared to March 2019.

• North America

This has been the most contributing region , registering a growth of 14.5% in March of the current year, which reflects the economic recovery.

It had the worst performance among all the regions, since it only obtained large decreases in its international cargo. Compared to March 2019, international capacity decreased 46%.

• The rest of the regions

Africa, the Middle East and Europe contributed very positive data, higher than 8% in the first two and 0.7% in Europe.

Although the growth rate has slowed since May compared to previous months, it is noticeable that international trade is increasing . Let us also remember that air cargo surpassed world merchandise trade for the fifth consecutive month.

Looper is present on all continents, we are experts in this type of cargo. For more information visit our page.

The post Air Cargo ¨ flies ¨ in the first semester of the year first appeared on LOOPER.