Measured in cargo tonne kilometres (CTK), global demand fell by 6.6% year-on-year, an improvement on March when it was down 7.6%.
Performance in April was affected by the global new export orders component of the Purchasing Managers’ Index (PMI) improving with China’s PMI passing the critical 50-mark, indicating that demand for manufactured goods is growing.
Consumer and producer price increases have moderated with the Consumer Price Index at 5% in the US and 8.1% in Europe, down from its peak of 11.5% in October.
Capacity measured in available CTK was up 13.4% year-on-year and up 3.2% on April 2019, the first time capacity has exceeded pre-Covid levels.
The increase came from belly capacity as the passenger recovers, while freighter capacity declined 2.3%, with IATA highlighting that preighter operations ceased in March after 2.5 years of continuous activity.
Willie Walsh, Director General of IATA, says, “The demand environment is challenging to read. Tapering inflation is definitely a positive. But the degree and speed at which that could lead to looser monetary policies that might stimulate demand is unclear. The resilience that got the air cargo industry through the Covid-19 crisis is also critical in the aftermath.”
Asia-Pacific airlines saw demand dipping 0.4% and capacity increase 41.2% as belly capacity came online from the passenger business.
North America posted the weakest performance, down 13.4%, with the North America-Europe and North America-Asia trade lanes proving particularly weak.
Europe was down 8.2% with intra-Europe and North America-Europe trade lanes struggling, which was partially offset by strong demand on the Europe-Asia lane.
The Middle East fell by 6.8%, a worse performance than March, when the decline was 5.5%.
Latin America saw a decrease of 1.6%, an improvement March when demand fell 4.4%.
Africa posted the only increase, up 0.9% with Africa to Asia increasing significantly, up 20% year-on-year.