Trans-Atlantic capacity rebounds to pre-pandemic levels

Trans-Atlantic capacity has rebounded to pre-pandemic levels as passenger travel continues to grow, Neel Jones Shah, executive vice president and global head of airfreight at San Francisco-based Flexport, said during an air market webinar presented by the company today. The trans-Atlantic trend is anticipated to continue, adding further belly capacity to the airfreight market, Shah added. Prior to the pandemic, the airfreight market was split relatively evenly between freighters and belly space. During the pandemic, the split became roughly 85% freighter capacity and 15% passenger capacity. However, now the industry is “starting to see [capacity] revert back to where we have been, historically,” he said. Adding capacity “If you look at passenger schedules, you see this very strong recovery in February, March, April and May, and in June, when the traditional summer season starts, we’re effectively back to pre-COVID capacity in the trans-Atlantic,” Shah noted. “What’s interesting is that, going forward into the winter months … airlines are planning for significantly more capacity going forward than they have traditionally. This is just based on the strong demand trends we’re seeing on the passenger side.” [caption id="attachment_57065658" align="alignright" width="517"] Air Market Update by Flexport[/caption] Indeed, carriers have been bolstering their trans-Atlantic networks since travel restrictions were initially lifted in November 2021 , in turn adding capacity into the airfreight market. For instance, in May, American Airlines Cargo strengthened capacity with routes between Europe and the U.S. and plans to launch a new route this summer between London (LHR) and Pheonix (PHX) . Also in May, Finnair Cargo added a flight frequency connecting Helsinki (HEL) to Seattle (SEA) . Meanwhile earlier this month IAG Cargo launched two new direct routes between Madrid (MAD), Dallas (DFW) and Washington, D.C., (IAD) using the belly capacity of an Iberia A332 aircraft. Labor woes and the hope tech brings Although the U.S. airfreight industry has been facing a labor crisis for the past seven years or so, it used to be relatively manageable, according to Shah. However, the COVID-19 crisis has exacerbated the labor shortages and exposed the fact that retaining labor in the industry is critically challenging . “We are perpetually churning employees in this industry and perpetually behind the hiring curve,” Shah said. “Most ground handlers in North America, for example, have a churn rate of 40%.” In addition to handling shortages, there is also a pilot shortage , with Southwest being the latest carrier to cancel thousands of flights due to a lack of pilots, he said. To combat these issues plaguing the industry, Shah emphasized the need for digitalization and automation. “ We need a lot of investment by stakeholders in this business in technology — to help automate as much of this industry as possible — because right now we have labor doing a lot of work that could be automated,” Shah said. This includes technology investments in infrastructure, he added. “ We see airports beginning to build new cargo handling terminals ; we see a host of airlines and freight forwarders and ground handlers implementing new technology, and we’ve seen a number of entrepreneurs enter this industry in order to find ways to help automate us out of the labor crisis,” Shah said. “We’re at the early stages of this, [but] we need this pace to keep up and actually even expand, so we need airports, airlines, ground handlers and everybody to invest very heavily, not only in technology but also in the physical infrastructure.”

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