Global airfreight tonnage retreated for a second consecutive week in week 32, slipping -2% from the previous week, which had been -1% below the chargeable weight of week 30, based on the more than 500,000 weekly transactions covered by WorldACD’s data. Only Africa (+3%) and Central & South America (+1%) showed growth, whereas volume contracted out of North America (-5%), Middle East & South Asia (-4%) and Europe (-3%). Tonnage from Asia Pacific was unchanged. Apart from a +1% gain in week 30, global airfreight volume has retreated in three of the past four weeks in low increments.
The decline in week 32 marks a deterioration on a comparison of the last two weeks with the preceding two weeks (2Wo2W), which shows a small decrease of -1%. When comparing week 32 with the same period last year (YoY), chargeable weight was up from all regions, with the exception of Europe and Africa (both remained stable), led by Asia Pacific (+7%) and Central & South America (CSA, +6%).
On a 2Wo2W basis, traffic from Asia Pacific was flat intra-region and retreated to North America (-2%), Middle East & South Asia (-3%) and Europe (-5%). Origin region Middle East & South Asia (MESA) saw flat traffic to Europe and a -9% drop to Asia Pacific. Chargeable weight out of North America was flat to CSA, slipped -2% to Europe and saw a steep decline to Asia Pacific of -11%.
As global capacity was largely unchanged week on week (WoW), global pricing rose +1%. This was driven by higher rates out of Europe (+3%) and Asia Pacific (+1%). YoY pricing was down -1% overall, falling in all origins except Africa (+9%) and Europe (+7%). While rates from Asia Pacific, CSA and North America are down in low single-digit percentages, they are -14% lower out of MESA, reflecting some normalization from the soaring rates seen a year earlier due to the Red Sea crisis.
With the exception of a +7% jump in pricing from CSA to Europe and a -4% contraction in rates MESA to Europe, rate fluctuations between regions in 2Wo2W have played out in a narrow band in line with the slow season.
