Worst year for American air freight since 2001 slump

THE year 2008 was the worst year for American air cargo since the economic slump of 2001 that accelerated further with the September 11 terror attacks, reported the American Air Transport Association (ATA).

A transpacific export market collapse in the last quarter ended 2008 with a 29.5 per cent decline in December, the single worst month the ATA ever reported, according to Washington DC's Traffic World. Cargo traffic of 431 million revenue ton miles was the lightest in the Pacific trade in any month since January 2004, said the report.

Collapsing transpacific trade pushed airfreight for US airlines down 17 per cent in December, giving American carriers their worst year since 2001, said the ATA. Overall traffic for the US airlines declined 3.2 per cent in 2008, including a 5.5 per cent drop in domestic business and a 1.2 per cent in the larger international area, said the ATA.

Ironically, domestic traffic grew 9.1 per cent from November to December, The ATA reported domestic cargo traffic fell 10.9 per cent in December from the same month the year before, but even this was an improvement over the 18.7 per cent decline carriers has suffered domestically in November.

The month-to-month domestic growth may have been the result of the movement of shipments from DHL, which saw a steep decline in traffic late last year as it prepared to exit the domestic market. DHL has not reported its traffic to the ATA, and industry experts believe most DHL parcel customers shifted to the US Postal Service and private express carriers, said the Traffic World report.

Source: Schednet