Earlier in May IATA poured a substantial bucket of cold water on those looking for signs of improving cargo demand.
     IATA did see positives in the U.S. and Europe, but despite Asia-Pacific carriers reporting a 6.9 percent rise in freight liftings in March compared to a year earlier, IATA warned of a looming slowdown in Chinese manufacturing impacting exports from emerging Asian countries.
     Although air freight volumes globally rose 5.9 percent year-on-year in March, IATA argued that much of this growth had in fact occurred in the final quarter of 2013, the assumption being that volume growth in the first quarter had been flat, a trend “consistent with the recent pause in improvements to business confidence and world trade.”

     And IATA went further, predicting, “the continuing slowdown of Chinese GDP growth is likely to ultimately impact trade growth and air freight demand for local carriers.”
     But as throughput figures for April are reported, IATA’s forecasts are looking increasingly out of touch, at least when it comes to Asia.
     Looking at the leading hubs, Hong Kong International Airport handled 362,000 tons of cargo in April, up 6 percent compared to a year earlier. Taiwan's Taipei Taoyuan International Airport saw cargo growth of 7.6 percent year in April as the hub handled 138,902 tons. And Shanghai Pudong saw cargo increase 10.3 percent year-on-year to 264,300 tons, helped by 28.2 percent surge in regional shipments and 9.6 percent increase in international volumes.
     Indeed, HKIA’s throughput, which tends to reflect the strength of Chinese exports, was up 5.6 percent year-on-year to 1.4 million tons over the first four months of 2014. The airport authority said growth in cargo throughput last month was driven mainly by transshipment volumes, up 18 percent from a year ago, and cargo throughput to/from Mainland China.
     "If we combine the traffic figures for March and April to even out the effects of the Easter holidays, we see strong year-on-year increases in passenger volume (6.2 percent), cargo tonnage (8.2 percent) and flight movements (6.6 percent),” said Stanley Hui Hon-chung, (left) Chief Executive Officer of Airport Authority.
     Asia’s leading carriers’ April figures also refused to fit the bearish IATA narrative of declining exports from Asia. For example, combined Cathay Pacific and Dragonair traffic figures for April revealed an 11 percent increase in cargo and mail uplift compared to a year earlier. “We saw an increase in demand across our freighter network in March and some of that momentum carried through into April. Traffic was also boosted by a pre-Easter rush,” said Cathay Pacific General Manager Cargo Sales & Marketing Mark Sutch (right).
     Preliminary figures for April from the Association of Asia Pacific Airlines showed that the region’s carriers saw international air cargo demand improve by 4.7 percent year-on-year in April on the back of strong exports from Asia.
     And as the end of May approached, IATA’s own figures revealed that Asia Pacific carriers saw cargo demand increase 5.2 percent year-on-year in April. But in keeping with its bearish outlook, this was written off as a “performance exaggerated by a comparison to a particularly weak April 2013.”
     IATA added: “Ongoing weakness in Chinese manufacturing activity is likely to impact on air freight demand in the coming months, and export volumes in emerging Asian markets have been in continuous decline throughout 2014.”
     Only time will tell if IATA’s skeptical stance on demand and the global economy is proved correct. The evidence from April suggests not.
SkyKing

If You Missed Any Of The Previous 3 Issues Of FlyingTypers
Click On Image Below To Access

FT051614