The airline industry recorded 20.8 billion cargo tonne-kilometres (CTKs) in January, Iata has reported.
This is a non-negligible 8.8% drop following the seasonal December peak, which is typically driven by the holiday season, inventory management, and other year-end business transactions, Iata’s latest airfreight data reveals.
“At the same time, the January reading marks a remarkable increase of 18.4% compared with January 2023.”
It is the second consecutive month of double-digit year-on-year (y-o-y) growth, says Iata.
“Over the past three decades, equally high annual growth rates have only been observed a handful of times, namely in the aftermaths of 9/11 (2002), the SARS outbreak (2004), the Global Financial Crisis (2009-2010), and the Covid-19 pandemic (2021).
“While the strong and continuously increasing y-o-y demand growth over the past six months can partially be attributed to a base effect (referring to the declining trend in the corresponding base years), it is also a reflection of buoyant international traffic that benefits from booming e-commerce, among other things.”
Iata emphasises that current trends in airfreight propelled industry-wide demand for air cargo back above pre-pandemic levels in December (compared with the same month in 2019), to settle at +2.8% in January.
“By the same logic, SA CTKs continued their upward trend in January and grew by 3.2% month-on-month as well as 15.1% y-o-y.
“This marks a strong start into 2024, as the industry is poised to continue the upward trend in SA CTKs observed throughout most of last year.”
