Airfreight volumes continue to fall in April

Global - A number of airlines in the battered aviation industry continue to report falling freight volumes last month, despite some industry players believing that the bottom could be nearing.

For the month of April, Cathay Pacific Airways and Dragonair reported a significant drop in cargo and mail tonnage.

Both airlines reported carrying a total of 123,179 tonnes of cargo and mail, down 13.3% from the same period a year ago. Capacity between Cathay and Dragonair, measured in available cargo/mail tonne kilometres declined by 12.2%, while the cargo and mail load factor dropped by 1.9% to 65%.

Tonnage at Cathay and Dragonair dipped by 17.3% year-to-date, compared to a capacity drop of 13.6%, reported Greater China Transport Logistics (GCTL).

Tony Tyler, CEO of Cathay Pacific said, "The outlook for our revenue is very poor and it could be a long time before we see the bottom of the market, let alone see any signs of recovery. It may be necessary to take some very difficult decisions about our network and about the company generally in order to secure the sustainability of this business."

"We are going to see some more pain in the next 3-4 months. But by the end of this month, we will have seen the worst. April and May were not very good, but I'm hoping to see [fewer declines] in June... We did not expect the effect the crisis has had on the automobile industry. On the air cargo side of the business, it's still okay," Ram Menen, divisional senior VP for Cargo at Emirates said.

Lufthansa Cargo also reported a cargo fall last month, transporting 113,000 tonnes of freight and mail, down 26.7% compared to April 2008, GCTL reported.
 
Revenue at Lufthansa Cargo calculated in cargo tonne kilometres declined by 28.4% compared to a 16.6% drop in available cargo tonne kilometres, which resulted in cargo load factor decreasing by 9.7% to 59%
 
Wolfgang Mayrhuber, chairman and CEO of Lufthansa said, "[Based on forward bookings] it looks like it's bottomed out, but we are by no means certain, and a recovery has not begun. The decline in cargo traffic and revenue also appears to have hit bottom, [but] revenue plunged to a much higher degree than volume...It is apparent that the [cargo] market will remain at this extremely low level."

Giovanni Bisignani, director general and CEO of IATA also said last month that the airline industry could have found its bottom.

 "The only glimmer of hope is that cargo demand has stabilised this month [March], although at the shockingly low level of -21.4%. For the fourth consecutive month international cargo demand is hovering in the -21% to -24% region as a result of the sharp drop in world trade. It's not the end of the recession, but we may have found the floor," Bisignani said.

The Association of Asia Pacific Airlines (AAPA) echoed similar views.

"Whilst the crisis confronting the industry remains acute, traffic levels do seem to be stabilising, even though there is, as yet, no sign of any uptick in demand that might signal the beginnings of a recovery process," Andrew Herdman, director general, AAPA said.