Healthy demand for Asia-Pacific airfreight

International freight traffic in June jumped 27% from a year ago with the Asia Pacific region recording the most significant improvement of 30% compared with Europe, which grew at half its speed (15%), the International Air  Transport Association (IATA) said.

“The industry continues to recover faster than expected, but with sharp regional differences,” IATA chief executive Giovanni Bisignani said.

The strongest airfreight performers were the African airlines (54%) followed by Latin America (45%) and then the Middle East (40%) while demand for the services of North American carriers grew 24%.

Mr Bisignani believed that the low value of the euro would help the region’s exporters and eventually drive up freight volumes.

“We remain cautiously optimistic.”

While pleased with the industry’s recent performance, Mr Bisignani questioned whether it could maintain the double-digit momentum.

“There is no indication that the recovery will stall any time soon,” he said.

“However with government stimulus packages tailing off and restocking largely completed, we do expect some slowing over the months ahead.”