Global air cargo demand recovers to pre-COVID levels in January

 IATA notes that all regions saw improvement and North America and Africa were the strongest performers

The International Air Transport Association (IATA) released January 2021 data for global air cargo markets showing that air cargo demand returned to pre-COVID levels (January 2019) for the first time since the onset of the crisis. January demand also showed strong month-to-month growth over December 2020 levels.

Global demand, measured in cargo tonne-kilometers (CTKs), was up 1.1.% compared to January 2019 and +3% compared to December 2020.

IATA notes that all regions saw month-on-month improvement in air cargo demand, and North America and Africa were the strongest performers.

“Air cargo traffic is back to pre-crisis levels and that is some much-needed good news for the global economy. But while there is a strong demand to ship goods, our ability is capped by the shortage of belly capacity normally provided by passenger aircraft. That should be a sign to governments that they need to share their plans for restart so that the industry has clarity in terms of how soon more capacity can be brought online. In normal times, a third of world trade by value moves by air. This high value commerce is vital to helping restore COVID damaged economies-not to mention the critical role air cargo is playing in distributing lifesaving vaccines that must continue for the foreseeable future,” said Alexandre de Juniac, IATA’s Director General and CEO.

Source: IATA