Asia currently dominates the world’s top outbound air cargo growth markets, with countries in the region filling all of the top export tonnage growth positions in June and forming most of the strongest outbound growth subregions in the first half, according to WorldACD Market Data.

 

In addition to this, the top-performing markets included Central Asia (+36%), the Gulf Area, and various subregions in Asia Pacific, stated WorldACD in its report.

 

Hong Kong in June once again topped the monthly country rankings in terms of absolute increases in outbound chargeable weight flown, with an increase of nearly 23 million kgs (23,000 tonnes), compared with June 2023, a year-on-year (YoY) rise of +17% from a subregion seeing exceptionally strong growth in cross-border e-commerce traffic. 

 

It was followed by China South East with an increase of nearly 13 million kgs (+18%), Thailand (+9 million kgs, +25%), China East (+7 million kgs, +8%), and India (+7 million kgs, +8%).

 

On the inbound side, the US Pacific States subregion again tops the monthly rankings in June for total increases in chargeable weight, with a YoY increase of 13 million kilos (+16%), followed by the UAE (+10 million kgs, +17%), Germany (+9 million kgs, +13%), USA Atlantic South (+8 million kgs, +8%), and USA North East (+7 million kgs, +11%).

 

Unsurprisingly, the single country recording the biggest outbound growth has been China, stated WorldACD.  

 

It recorded an increase of 30 million kgs in June, based on the more than 2 million monthly transactions covered by WorldACD’s data. 

 

For the first half, the combined outbound tonnages from China and Hong Kong rose by +24% compared with the first six month of 2023.  

 

This strong rate of YoY growth in 2024 follows a +12% YoY rise for the full year 2023. However, much of that increase last year occurred in the second half (H2) – meaning that YoY comparisons in H2 this year may show lower percentage growth numbers than those seen in H1.

 

Examining chargeable weight growth for the main global origin subregions for the first half of 2024 reveals some interesting patterns and trends, and also reinforces the message that much of the worldwide growth this year is being driven from Asian origin points, although there are some other strong growth areas.

 

According to WorldACD, the highest percentage growth, YoY, comes from Central Asia at +36%, followed by the Gulf Area at +31%, where air cargo tonnages have been boosted by restricted container shipping capacity because of the attacks on vessels in the Red Sea. 

 

Other strong growth subregions within Asia include South Asia (+20%), South East Asia (+19%), and Northeast Asia (+16%). But there has also been strong growth in the first half of 2024 from North Africa (+22%) and the Balkan & SE Europe subregion (+22%), along with Southern Africa (+17%), Australasia & Pacific (+17%), and Eastern Europe (+12%). 

 

Subregions recording modest growth in H1 include Western Europe (+7%), South America (+6%), Canada (+5%), West Africa (+5%), and USA (+3%), with Central Africa, East Africa and Central America more or less flat.-TradeArabia News Service