RETROSPECTIVE
That was the
year, that was...
Try as he might, Chris Lewis is struggling to find some seasonal cheer.
The airfreight industry is
going through another
difficult patch, with
growth falling away amid a
worsening world economic
and trading climate. But we
have been here plenty of times
before: a pattern of growth
followed by a period of decline
is hardly anything new.
All the year’s developments
took place against a
background of a generally
softening world air cargo
market. IATA figures for
September showed a 4.5%
decrease in global air freight
demand. Freight tonne
kilometres decreased by 4.5%
in September 2019, compared
to the same month in 2018
– the eleventh consecutive
month of year-on-year decline,
the longest period since the
global financial crisis in 2008.
To some extent, this was
the inevitable reaction to
good growth in previous years
(the market being generally a
cyclical one) but one specific
factor in 2019 was President
Trump’s ongoing policies with
China and the European Union over trade sanctions and tariffs.
Earlier, when noting a 3.2% contraction in global air cargo
in July 2019, IATA’s Director General Alexandre de Juniac laid
the blame squarely at the US administration’s door, urging the
US and China to sort out their differences. Later, in October, the
simmering dispute between the US and the EU erupted again,
when Trump imposed a range of duties on EU exports as part of
the long-running saga over alleged illegal subsidies to Airbus.
In October and November, a number of freighter operators
announced reductions in services and fleets, including Volga-
Dnepr, AirBridgeCargo and CargoLogicAir.
However, there was one ray of hope in an otherwise rather
gloomy year for global trade – the European Union said on June
28 that it had reached political agreement on its largest ever trade
deal, with the Mercosur South American bloc. While it will take
time for the first benefits of this pact to flow through, the effects
18 December 2019 www.airlogisticsinternational.com
/www.airlogisticsinternational.com