The many weeks of positive airfreight numbers during the 2014 peak season, inflated somewhat by the ongoing West Coast port crisis, were reflected in the latest figures from WorldACD, showing worldwide volume growth of 4.3 percent, compared to the previous November (see chart at right). However, the year-over-year growth for the month was significantly smaller than the rise seen in recent months, and yields fell, year-over-year, by 4.0 percent – the largest dip since a 5.0 percent decrease in February 2014.
The bottleneck at U.S. ports could be inferred most dramatically in WorldACD’s month-to-month figures for the trans-Pacific market. While air cargo revenues for North American exports to the Asia Pacific region fell 9 percent from October to November 2014, shipments from Asia Pacific to North America skyrocketed by 17 percent over the same period, with yields improving by 9 percent.
Africa and Latin America both enjoyed a 7 percent year-over-year volume growth in November 2014. Latin American carriers managed to keep their yields steady during the period. African carriers also reported a 15 percent revenue growth for the perishables market, tripling the worldwide average of 5 percent y-o-y growth in that sector.
Carriers from the Middle East and South Asia (MESA), which has the second-highest revenue figures behind Europe for pharmaceutical and biomedical shipments, reported y-o-y revenue growth of 17 for pharma cargo. Europe saw overall revenue declines in November totaling 5 percent, both month to month and year over year.
For its regional focus, WorldACD singled out Indian carriers as particularly strong performers, with 13.5 percent outgoing volume growth since 2011, despite a huge 20 percent drop in yield performance, measured in US$. Incoming volume fell during the same period, but at a slower rate than the worldwide average.
About 25 perecnt of all Indian airfreight exports since 2011 were flown to the U.K., Germany and the United Arab Emirates, while 40 percent of the subcontinent’s imports came from Hong Kong, Germany and China. The live animal sector in India over the same period grew the fastest (243 percent), followed by perishables (83 percent) and pharmaceutical (67 percent).
“Mumbai, Delhi and Chennai count for 70 per cent of India’s outgoing cargo,” WorldACD said. “The fastest growing cities in general are Hyderabad and Kochi. Bangalore and Hyderabad show the highest growth in pharmaceuticals.”
On the forwarding side of the equation, WorldACD said smaller forwarders, such as Hellmann and Fashion Logistics, did better than the top five leaders: DHL Global Forwarding, Kuehne + Nagel, DB Schenker, Expeditors and Panalpina. Meanwhile, large Asian forwarders – such as Yusen, Sinotrans, Beijing Global Sky Horse and CTS International – benefitted from the strong trans-Pacific export market.