An increase of 5% year-on-year was recorded for the month of July: the fastest pace of growth in almost 18 months. The greatest improvement was seen by European airlines, which experienced a demand growth in FTKs of 7.2%, while Middle Eastern airlines reported an increase of 6.7%, carriers in the Asia Pacific region saw a 4.9% boost and North American carriers recorded a 4.1% rise.
Lagging behind in terms of statistics was Africa, where airlines saw demand decline by a further 6.8%, and Latin America, which saw a 5.6% drop in FTKs.
Despite some positive news, IATA’s new Director General and CEO, Alexandre de Juniac, did not express optimism towards future freight figures. "July was a positive month for air freight — which is an all too rare occurrence,” he said. “Despite that, we must recognise that we face some strong headwinds on fundamental aspects of the business. Global trade growth is sluggish and business confidence is weak. And the political rhetoric on both sides of the Atlantic is not encouraging for further trade liberalisation,” he concluded, warning of the anomalous reality of the improvement.
In a familiar scene, the increase in capacity exceeded that of demand, which demonstrated a 5.2% rise. Consequently, the global load factor slipped 0.1 percentage points to 41.3%.
