News / Measure for measure, August air cargo traffic shows a slight uptick

03/10/2016

There’s been a flurry of August data; WorldACD showing air cargo volumes grew 2.3% in the month, while yields remained stable.

And accurate and on-time data reporting between forwarders and airlines, as measured by CargoiQ, the new Cargo2000, remained stable at 81%.

Meanwhile, the Association of Asia Pacific Airlines (AAPA) saw August cargo traffic grow 2.5% to 5.39bn FTKs, down from July’s 3.9% growth rate. Air freight capacity in August grew 2.3%.

Interestingly, WorldACD also looked into a difference in reporting that saw IATA give growth rates in July of 5%, while WorldACD reported 1.8%. It noted that IATA – and AAPA – reports in FTKs, while it records kg.

It said:“Reporting in kg is the better indicator for the amount of goods being transported by air on an aggregate level, but also per individual market. FTKs, on the other hand, are the better indicator for knowing the resultant of weight carried and distance flown.”

But, it adds that FTKs can be skewed by indirect carriers which operate longer routes entering a market.

So WorldACD added a new measure, Direct Tonne Kilometres (DTKs), which combines kilograms with the shortest possible distance between and origin and destination. Using that metric, DTKs showed growth of 3.4% in July, of which 1.8% was due to weight growth and 1.6% to the distance travelled.

Also reporting today is CargoiQ. It has published a quality measure report, showing that in August, 81% of its members’ shipments recorded ‘Notification of freight and data availability’ on time at destination, while 84% of the freight was delivered to the consignee when promised. Total shipments measured were down 1%.

More serious, perhaps, is that FWB – a measure of forwarders’ booking quality and accuracy of electronic data – was just 42%. This was in large part due to non-members.

Shipments from reporting forwarders carried by reporting airlines across agreed lanes saw accuracy in 82% of electronic data, falling to 32% of shipments carried by reporting airlines from non-member forwarders. It indicates that joining CargoiQ does, indeed, make companies “visibly better”.

The report also outlines members’ individual performances.

Leading the field in the percentage of on-time freight and document availability are Singapore Airlines (98%) and Korean Air and Lufthansa at 90% each. Cargolux trails with 67%. Meanwhile, among forwarders sending accurate data (FWB), Schenker was top with 93%, closely followed by Cargomind with 92%.