AIR freight rates rose for a sixth consecutive month, with global average air cargo spot rates reaching US$2.66 per kg in July, up 20 per cent on the same month of 2023, reported London's Air Cargo News.
Rates rose off the back of the ongoing growth in cargo demand. July's volumes were up 13 per cent year on year, due in large part to buoyant e-commerce demand from Asia as well as to the comparatively low demand base for the corresponding month of 2023.
The slower growth in global air cargo capacity - of just two per cent year on year - stimulated the rise in rates and in what xeneta calls the dynamic load factor - its measurement of capacity utilisation based on volume and weight of cargo flown alongside available capacity.
The dynamic load factor was up on last year's level by five percentage points, reaching 59 per cent in July.
In a month on month comparison, the picture was less different, however. Global air cargo demand slowed month on month in July, with the peak summer holiday season starting in the month.
The global IT outage that impacted Microsoft systems less than two weeks ago brought widespread disruption, including flight delays and cancellations that lasted in some cases for more than a week.
The resulting backlogs saw cargo load factors on some affected airlines increase up to 4 percentage points compared to the previous week. But load factors had mostly recovered to pre-outage levels by July 28.
As is often the case, short-term panic among shippers and forwarders pushed up the price of capacity, which rose to its highest level of the year in the last week of July to a global average air cargo spot rate of $2.70 per kg.
According to Xeneta, strong year-on-year growth in air cargo demand is expected to extend through this month and into September, in part due to the low base set last year.
SeaNews Turkey
Rates rose off the back of the ongoing growth in cargo demand. July's volumes were up 13 per cent year on year, due in large part to buoyant e-commerce demand from Asia as well as to the comparatively low demand base for the corresponding month of 2023.
The slower growth in global air cargo capacity - of just two per cent year on year - stimulated the rise in rates and in what xeneta calls the dynamic load factor - its measurement of capacity utilisation based on volume and weight of cargo flown alongside available capacity.
The dynamic load factor was up on last year's level by five percentage points, reaching 59 per cent in July.
In a month on month comparison, the picture was less different, however. Global air cargo demand slowed month on month in July, with the peak summer holiday season starting in the month.
The global IT outage that impacted Microsoft systems less than two weeks ago brought widespread disruption, including flight delays and cancellations that lasted in some cases for more than a week.
The resulting backlogs saw cargo load factors on some affected airlines increase up to 4 percentage points compared to the previous week. But load factors had mostly recovered to pre-outage levels by July 28.
As is often the case, short-term panic among shippers and forwarders pushed up the price of capacity, which rose to its highest level of the year in the last week of July to a global average air cargo spot rate of $2.70 per kg.
According to Xeneta, strong year-on-year growth in air cargo demand is expected to extend through this month and into September, in part due to the low base set last year.
SeaNews Turkey
