Global air cargo volumes and spot rates edged up marginally in October, but overall demand remained muted, diminishing hope of a traditional year-end revenue boost for airlines and freight forwarders, according to Xeneta's latest weekly market analysis.

The latest industry data shows a 2% month-over-month improvement in airfreight volumes in October, which was sub-seasonal compared to the previous five years.

Xeneta said, meanwhile, general air cargo spot rates edged up 2% versus September to US$2.28 per kg, rising above seasonal rates in the opening two weeks of October for the first time since mid-May 2023 before falling back to below the seasonal level. 

It added that in comparison to last year, the global air cargo spot rate declined at its slowest pace of -30% in October.

"This is attributed to the slight uptick in global cargo volumes as well as a slowdown of cargo capacity growth in a month in which global belly capacity returned to its pre-pandemic level, albeit this recovery is varied across major lanes," Xeneta said.

Global dynamic load factor — which measures both volume and weight perspectives of cargo flown and capacity available — climbed to 59% in October but remained 2 percentage points below the level of a year ago.

The report noted that across the opening 10 months of 2023, load factors have performed below all the corresponding monthly levels of the last five years, pointing to a persistently weak global air cargo market. 

"October's market performance is what we expected to see. It was a marginally busier month but not a cause for much optimism nor pessimism,"  said Niall van de Wouw, chief airfreight officer at Xeneta.        

"Carriers and forwarders are not expecting the market situation to improve significantly until well into the second half of 2024."

He added that the ongoing situation in Ukraine and now the conflict in Israel and Gaza will only add to these concerns.

"This is a volatile market. Freight forwarders are still procuring capacity on a short-term basis but are selling more long-term. That's a risk, but clearly, forwarders are not willing to commit to capacity because of so much uncertainty," van de Wouw said.

Against this backdrop of a still-soft cargo market, global carriers continued to register declines in their October revenues; the Xeneta report noted, down 26% at an overall industry level from the same month last year.

This is also reflected in trends reported in carriers' latest Q3 results, although October 2023 revenues still outperformed October 2019’s pre-pandemic numbers by 21%.

Xeneta noted that one reason for the higher-than-2019 revenue is still the widened freight rate spread.

"The market high rates for the transportation of premium and special cargoes remained elevated and not yet fully normalized, while the market low rates for general cargoes have nearly gone back to their pre-pandemic levels."

Overall, carriers continued to suffer from rising operating costs. Jet fuel costs remained elevated, with the US Gulf Coast jet fuel spot rates in the first three weeks of October 55% above their October 2019 level.

Rising labour costs triggered by high inflation and labour shortages also pushed up carrier operating costs.

Xeneta said this is likely to be especially challenging for cargo airlines that do not have the added benefit of passenger revenues.    

Zooming into the carrier-sell rates at the corridor levels, cargo spot rates from Europe to the US stood at US$1.85 per kg in October, up 7% from a month ago — which is because the market anticipates declines in cargo capacity as space availability on this corridor is highly influenced by carriers' seasonal passenger schedule adjustments, which began on October 29 this year.

At the same time, volume measured in chargeable weight edged up 3% from a month ago. However, this represented a considerable 10% decline from the same period a year earlier.

Looking at the East-to-West trades, Xeneta noted that October air cargo spot rates from China to Europe climbed +14% month-over-month to US$3.66 per kg, while Southeast Asia to Europe spot rates rose at a slightly slower pace of 9% to US$2.51 per kg in the same period.

In comparison, the transpacific market saw these two origins show the reversed trends. Spot rates from China to the US increased just 10% from a month ago to US$4.00 per kg, while spot rates from Southeast Asia to the US jumped a considerable 15% to US$3.61 per kg.

Xeneta said in its report that the rise in spot rate for the latter corridor is mainly driven by sharp growth in chargeable weight month-on-month.