The general outlook for the air freight industry remained negative in September according to the Airports Council International (ACI) dragged by trade tensions, a slowing global economy and increasing social worldwide creating a lot of risk and uncertainty for the industry.

The trade association of the world’s airports said global volumes dropped by -4.2% in September as year-to-date figure stood at -3.1%.

With only three months left in the year, global trade growth will be difficult to achieve, ACI said.

“Global passenger traffic may end up stabilizing around a figure of +3% growth by the end of 2019 which, while a significant slowdown from 2018’s +6.4%, is still a solid performance given the current geopolitical environment,” said Angela Gittens, ACI World director-general.

“Trade wars, a slowing global economy and increasing social unrest around the world have created a challenging backdrop for the air transport industry,” she added, noting however that despite this, “growth is expected to start recovering in 2020.”

“We can remain optimistic that the new year will bring an easing of tensions in international relations between major economies,” the ACI official said.

Domestic, international volumes decline

“The freight market continued to struggle with the international and domestic volumes posting comparable declines. The domestic freight market, which has held up well in the face of global uncertainty in 2019, could end the year with an overall decline with the North American market, which has been the main driver of the domestic segment, having finally buckled under a slowing global economy,” Gittens said.

ACI said the freight industry continued its particularly difficult 2019 run in September, with both international and domestic volumes posting comparable figures at -4.2% and -4% respectively.

The international market remained the major loser of the global backdrop, standing at -4.7% on a year-to-date basis. The domestic market was still in the positive with three months left to the year, at +0.4%.

Of the major regional markets, it said Europe posted the least decline in September, only falling by -2.4% on a year-over-year basis. Year-to-date results stood at -2.9%, driven almost entirely by the region’s international market.

North America posted negative growth for the second month in a row, at -4.8% for the month. Year-to-date results for the region had remained positive up until August, but have finally fallen below 0%, at -0.3%.

ACI noted though that even if the North American international freight market has been declining for some time, with a year-to-date figure now standing at -4.8%, its domestic market had remained resilient to the global economic backdrop until recently.

It fell by -3.3% in September after moving sideways in August.

“With trade discussions with China still underway and diplomatic relationships between the US and numerous international partners still under strain, the chances that the region’s freight market will fully recover by year’s end remain small,” the airline association further said.

Africa bucked global decline

ACI said cargo volumes in Asia-Pacific dropped by -3.9% in September, results that are a slight improvement over August’s -6.8% fall, but still recording a decline.

“With the region suffering the brunt of the trade wars’ impacts due to their disruption of supply chains, and an ongoing political crisis in Hong Kong, 2019 will be a particularly difficult year for its freight industry,” it said, referring to Asia Pacific.

Meanwhile, the report said Latin America-Caribbean, Africa and the Middle East all posted declines of more than -5% in September, at -5.5%, -6.4% and -6.7% respectively.

Despite the decline, Africa, however, was the only region with a positive year-to-date figure by the month’s end, at +0.3%, but its downtrend remains quite strong and it may also fall below 0% in October.

ACI collects and analyses data from a significant sample of airports that provide regular reports on month-by-month passenger and air freight statistics; this forms part of the world’s most comprehensive source for airport data.