Data from IATA says that total demand measured in cargo tonne kilometres (CTK) increased 10.3% year-on-year and CTK was up 11.4% for international operations.
Capacity measured in available CTK (ACTK) was up 7.3% in total and 10.5% for international operations.
Willie Walsh, Director General of IATA, says, “Air cargo demand grew by 10.3% over the previous March. This contributed to a strong first quarter performance which slightly exceeded even the exceptionally strong 2021 first quarter performance during the Covid crisis. With global cross-border trade and industrial production continuing to show a moderate upward trend, 2024 is shaping up to be a solid year for air cargo.”
Factors IATA said should be noted include global cross-border trade rising by 1.2% in February and industrial production was up 1.6%.
In March, the manufacturing output Purchasing Managers’ Index (PMI) was 51.9, indicating expansion while the new export orders PMI rose to 49.5, still below the 50 threshold that would indicate growth expectations.
Inflation was mixed in March with the rate falling to 2.6% in the European Union and 2.7% in Japan while it rose to 3.5% in the USA.
China experienced deflation of 0.01%, a return to deflation after inflation in February.
Among the regions, Asia-Pacific airlines saw year-on-year demand growth of 14.3% with Asia-Europe services up 2.7 percentage points to 17% and demand within Asia increase 6.7 percentage points to 11.8%.
North America had the weakest growth at 0.9% with growth of 2.9% on the North America-Europe trade lane and 4.7% between Asia and North America.
European demand was up 10% with intra-European services up 24.7%, Europe-Middle East up 38.3% and Europe-North America by 2.9%.
The Middle East was the strongest region with 19.9% growth, particularly helped by the Middle East-Europe up 38.3% and the Middle East-Asia up 19.6%.
Demand in Latin America increased by 9.2% year-on-year in March.
African airlines saw demand grow by 14.2% in March with growth of 22.9% on the Africa-Asia trade lane, which was a 19.8 percentage point decrease compared to February and the largest contraction across the major route areas.