There is no sign of post-holiday season recovery as far as global air cargo tonnage goes. That said, there was already a buzz by the end of the first quarter in 2022. These are the figures rolled out from WorldACD Market Data.
The figures pertaining to week 1 suggest global tonnage to be stable as compared to the previous week, while at the same time last year, there was a surge of +4% that was seen. The trend thereby denotes a demand that is weakening across the world.
Although the average rates remained intact in 2023’s first week, which suggested an increase of +1% as compared to the previous week, whereas in the last year there was a substantial dip of -5% that was recorded.
When comparing 52nd week to the 1st week with preceding 2 weeks, the tonnage dipped -27% which was below the combined total of weeks 50 and 51 with a capacity decrease of -5%, whereas the average global rates declined by -3%which is based on more than 400000 transactions that were weekly and covered through WorldACD data.
Perspective based on years
As compared to the overall global market at this time in 2022, chargeable weight in week 52 as well as week 1 was down to -21% of what was witnessed in the same period last year at a capacity of -1%.
It is noteworthy that the ex-North America tonnage is down by -29% and the ex-Asia Pacific tonnage is down by -26%, which is way below the strong levels that they had seen this time last year. Having said that, there were also double-digit y-o-y percentage drops on tonnage that were outbound from Europe by -18% and Middle East as well as South Asia by -12%.
The entire capacity has seen a slight slump, i.e., -1% as compared to the year that has gone by, and is down from central and south America at a figure of -5%, Asia Pacific at -11%, Europe at -2%, Africa at 12%, North America at 4%, the Middle East as well as South Asia at 4%. Overall, the global rates are -28% than the usual levels that were witnessed in 2022, at an average of $3.08 per kilo in the first week, despite the fact that there were higher surcharges on fuel. However, they remain much above the pre-COVID times.
