Air freight suffering 'tummy trouble'

© Pierre-yves Babelon

Here’s a useful primer on the state of the air freight industry from Bloomberg – although it’s a familiar story to those who buy and sell capacity on a day-to-day basis. The industry continues with its structural problems – increasing competition from container shipping; changes in global supply chains; and overall weak global demand for finished goods – at the same time that manufacturers such as Boeing continue to offer remarkably bullish future forecasts, although Airbus does not share its confidence. It’s not all doom and gloom however – the ban on lithium batteries in passenger aircraft and the massive growth in e-commerce volumes provide the silver linings.