The International Air Transport Association (IATA) has reported a 4.7% decline in air cargo demand in Africa for August 2023 compared to the same month in the previous year.
This decline marks a significant setback for African airlines, as they had experienced 2.3% growth in cargo volumes in July.
One contributing factor to this decline is the 1.1% reduction in cargo volumes recorded on the Africa-Asia routes in August, whereas the same route had shown substantial growth of 11.2% in July.
Global air cargo
However, there is a silver lining as available cargo tonne-kilometers (ACTKs), a measurement for available total cargo capacity, increased by 3.8% compared to August 2022 levels.
In contrast, other regions demonstrated different cargo performance trends.
Asia-Pacific airlines experienced a 4.9% increase in air cargo volumes in August, accompanied by a significant 28.5% rise in available capacity.
North American carriers saw a slight decrease of 1.2% in cargo volumes but an increase of 2.7% in available cargo capacity.
European carriers also faced a decline in cargo volumes by 0.2% in August 2023, although their available cargo capacity increased by 3.6%.
Meanwhile, Middle Eastern carriers achieved a 1.4% growth in cargo volumes despite a substantial 15.7% increase in cargo capacity.
Latin American airlines had the strongest performance in August, with a 6.2% increase in cargo volumes, accompanied by a growth of 13.7% in available cargo capacity.
On a global scale, the air cargo market saw a 1.5% year-on-year growth in cargo demand in August, marking the first positive growth in 19 months.
The industry-wide air cargo demand, measured by cargo tonne-kilometers (CTKs), reached 20.7 billion in August, with seasonally-adjusted (SA) CTKs at 20.8 billion.
While global CTKs grew by 1.5% YoY, they remained 1.3% lower than their pre-pandemic levels in 2019.