Severe weather affects passengers rather than freight

Although the severe weather conditions across Europe and North America at the end of last year dented airline traffic volumes, it is unlikely to have significantly affected airline profits, according to Chris Zweigenthal, CEO of the Airlines Association of SA (AASA). But it was not just confined to the tail end of 2010. Just a couple of weeks back, reports flowed in from the US revealing that a huge winter snow and ice storm had cut a swathe from New Mexico to Maine, stranding hundreds of thousands without power and stalling travel and shipping. Major US airlines cancelled more than 5 500 flights a day for two straight days as the monster winter storm paralysed air travel and threatened to erode revenue for carriers hit the hardest. But these adverse weather conditions have tended to affect passenger numbers rather than air cargo volumes, according to Zweigenthal. “Look at the International Air Transport Association (Iata) figures,” he told FTW. “They show that airfreight grew by over one fifth in 2010, in a sign of global economic recovery, but that icy-cold weather in Europe and North America dented passenger demand at the end of the year.” The association stats revealed that, after adjusting for seasonal fluctuations, air travel fell by just under 1% between November and December. Partly due to this adverse impact the yearon- year growth rate slowed to 4.9% in December, compared with the growth rate of 8.2% in November. “According to Iata,” Zweigenthal added, “that was due entirely to the severe weather in Europe and North America. If it were not for that there would have been a further, though modest, increase in air travel volumes in December. “But there was certainly a slowdown in the pace of air travel expansion in the final two months of 2010. Until November the 2010 expansion had been trending higher at an annualised growth rate of just under 6%.” But while the air travel markets – measured in revenue passenger kilometres (RPKs) – were hit significantly in December by the severe winter weather, according to Iata, air cargo didn’t suffer from the same blow. The year-on-year increase for airfreight – measured in freight tonne kilometres (FTKs) – in December was 6.7%, a higher growth rate than the revised 5.8% reported for November.