Data from the industry analysts says volumes were down 8% year-on-year in June and down 7% on pre-pandemic levels.
Rates have fallen 30% between April and June as capacity returns to the market, especially in the North Atlantic, but general rates are still 129% higher than 2019 and 13% higher than this time last year.
Capacity was up 6% on last year but 11% below 2019 giving the market a dynamic load factor of 59%, 9 percentage points lower than 2021.
Niall van de Wouw, Chief Airfreight Officer of Xeneta, which acquired CLIVE earlier this year, says that in May, it was predicted that the North Atlantic would be a test case for markets returning to pre-pandemic levels, and the industry may see the consequences sooner rather than later.
Rates dropped 30% between the first week of April and the last week of June brings them very close to 2020 levels, he says.
“If we just look at the Spot market, the rates are already lower in the last two weeks of June 2022 compared to 2020 by around 5% and the market has yet to bottom out. This will be causing some interesting soul-searching for airlines and forwarders,” van de Wouw comments.
Flights from Asia to the US and Europe remain relatively full, the North Atlantic is subdued due to more capacity, says van de Wouw, who speculates whether freighters will be redeployed on different routes.
The reaction of forwarders who have secured capacity directly with airlines or through charter brokers or ACMI providers will be interesting because more options will be available in a softening market.
“They were willing to pay a price for reliability and their own control, but they may now be considering how much cheaper it could now be to use commercial airline capacity. And, has the ‘cost of living’ crisis even started to kick-in yet?”, asks van de Wouw.