In sharp contrast to its performance over the past 17 months, African airfreight demand fell 3.7% in March.
According to the latest demand and supply analysis released by the International Air Transport Association (Iata), African FTKs (freight tonne kilometres) were 3.7% lower than a year ago, after topping the international growth chart for 17 of the previous 18 months,.
However, the analysis suggests that the negative growth rate can mainly be attributed to an outsized increase in freight volumes in March last year.
Overall, March results show that annual growth in industry-wide FTKs slowed to a 22-month low of 1.7%, while annual growth in airfreight capacity exceeded demand for the first time in 20 months.
