The first quarter of 2020 (and quite possibly the months beyond) will turn out to be an extraordinary period for the world and for world trade, and thus for air cargo. The coronavirus leaves traces in almost all aspects of life, not just in China but increasingly elsewhere as well. Supply chains have been disrupted around the world, to varying degrees, marking how much we have come to rely on Chinese production.
January 2020 at a glance
- Total Chargeable Weight: -5.8% year-over-year (YoY); -9.7% month-over-month (MoM).
- General cargo -9% YoY, Special cargo 0.5% YoY.
- Direct Ton Kilometers (DTK’s): -5.6%
- Yield stood at USD 1.74 (-5.6% YoY, -3.5% MoM). The yield in EUR stood at 1.56.
- The cargo load factor dropped by 1.9 percentage-points YoY, and by 4.3 MoM.
- High-Tech & Other Vulnerable Goods increased by +4.6% YoY, whilst
- Pharma & Temperature Controlled Goods rose by +6.5% YoY. In perishables, meat did best (+6.7% YoY), followed by Flowers (+2.2%), but all other categories declined (-2.7%).
With Chinese New Year (CNY) this year at the end of January (CNY-2019 came in February), it was to be expected that the YoY figures for January would be negative. Worldwide, the month saw a decrease in air cargo weight of almost 6%, accompanied by a drop in yield (measured in USD) of 5.6%. As for Asia, the traffic pattern for China around CNY always shows an earlier slow-down in imports than in exports. It was no surprise, therefore, that traffic to Asia Pacific fell by 13.6% YoY in January, whilst exports dropped by 8.0%. Latin America was the only region showing growth in air cargo exports (+2.7%), whilst the destinations Africa and Middle East & South Asia (MESA) were the only regions that saw imports by air increase YoY (3.1% and 0.6% respectively).