Sharp decline in load factors

Airfreight demand growth began to ease off in April, resulting in a “sharp” decline in load factors as they reached their lowest level for a year.
The latest IATA figures show that airfreight volumes increase by 3.3% year-on-year in April compared with growth of 4.3% for the first four months.
It said that the slowdown was mainly the result of a weakening in demand in Asia Pacific, where freight tonne km (FTK) increased by 4.5% in April against the year-to-date figure of 7.3%.
“The slowdown is consistent with a reversal in earlier gains in regional trade,” IATA said, adding: “Part of the recent decline in emerging Asia exports is reflecting economic weakness in Europe, which dampens demand for manufactured goods shipped by Asia Pacific carriers.”
One contact at a European logistics firm confirmed this assumption earlier today, saying the weaker Euro was having an effect on consumers' buying power.
Conversely, exports from Europe were increasing as goods manufactured on the continent became cheaper elsewhere.
“Results have been mixed,” IATA added. “Carriers in the Middle East continue to show strong growth, with a rise of 14.1% in April year-on-year, reflecting continued expansion in capacity and network, as well as robust trade with Middle Eastern economies.
“In Europe, by contrast, airfreight volumes carried by regional airlines fell 0.3% in April year-on-year.
“Recent improvements in business confidence in the Eurozone are yet to translate to increased demand for airfreight and consumer confidence remains subdued.” 
As a result of the growth slowdown and capacity increases, the association said load factors “dipped sharply in April” to 44.7%.
In March, the figure stood at 47.9% while in April last year, load factors stood at 45.4%.
“Levels are now the lowest they have been for the past year, on a seasonally adjusted basis. All regions except Africa recorded an increase in capacity in April compared to March.”
The region with the weakest load factor in April was Africa, at 30.9%, while Asia Pacific was the best preforming with 53.2%.
IATA was not confident of a major improvement in the year ahead, although it still expects there to be growth in 2015.
“Acceleration in the airfreight growth trend is unlikely in the near term. Globally, April data show no increase in business confidence compared to the start of the year.
“Furthermore, export orders have shown gradual decline throughout the first quarter, and are now indicating no growth.
“That said, for 2015 overall, moderate expansion in air freight is expected alongside anticipated improvements in the global economy.”

Source: IATA

























Source : http://www.aircargonews.net/news/airlines/single-view/news/sharp-decline-in-load-factors.html

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Pharma helps K+N airfreight outpace the market

Kuehne+Nagel beat 2014 airfreight market growth with a 5.3 per cent increase in volumes to 1.2m tonnes for the full year.
The Switzerland-based logistics giant’s air cargo increase is more than twice last year’s global market benchmark average of between three and four per cent.
K+N, the world’s second largest airfreight forwarder by tonnages, said that the key success factors in the business unit were “industry-specific airfreight products, which led to significant business wins in the pharmaceutical, automotive and industrial goods sectors”.
There was also increased demand for KN EngineChain product – launched in 2013 - a special service for the transport and handling of aircraft engines.
The new online portal KN FreightNet, which was brought to market in 2014, “underlines K+N’s innovative power while setting a new standard in the airfreight industry” it said.
In comparison to the previous year, airfreight EBIT improved by 7.2 per cent to SFr 238m. The conversion rate developed positively from 25.3 per cent in the previous year to 27.0 per cent.
In it container ocean freight arm, K+N handled over 3.8m teu in 2014, which represents an increase of 242,000 containers or seven per cent more than in the previous year. In maritime, K+N once again grew significantly faster than the global seafreight market, which gained around four per cent.
Detlef Trefzger, K+N chief executive, commented: “In a volatile economic environment with fluctuating currencies, we were able to simultaneously expand our market share and increase results in 2014.”
Dr Trefzger added: “For the first time profits were reported over four consecutive quarters. I would also like to emphasise the continuously excellent performance in airfreight and the further improvement of results in contract logistics.
“In seafreight we grew volumes and held margins stable, despite the high volatility of rates and negative currency impacts.”
Total K+N group net turnover of SFr17.5bn was 1.9 per cent (in constant currencies 5.1 per cent) higher than in the previous year.
Gross profit rose by 0.5 per cent (in constant currencies 2.9 per cent) to SFr6.288m and the operational result (EBITDA) increased by 4.5 per cent (in constant currencies 7.8 per cent) to SFr1,005m.
Earnings for the year improved by 6.1 per cent (in constant currencies 9.7 per cent) to SFr644m.

Source : http://www.aircargonews.net/news/single-view/news/pharma-helps-k-n-airfreight-outpace-the-market.html

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Asia Airlines Capacity and Cargo Traffic

 

Overall, airfreight demand in freight tonne kilometers (FTK) grew by an encouraging 4.7 percent compared to the same month last year. The average international freight load factor rose for the second consecutive month, by 0.8 percentage points to 66.1 percent in June, on a 3.4 percent growth in offered freight capacity.
 Source: Association of Asia Pacific Airlines / http://aircargoworld.com/Air-Freight-Data#chart8

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