Softening growth in tonnages and rates
Worldwide air cargo finished the year at its lowest year-on-year full-month growth, with global tonnages in December around +6% higher than in the final month of 2023, although they were already at relatively high levels back then. Average full-market rates in December were around +7% higher, year on year (YoY), which is half of the growth reported in September, according to the latest figures and analysis by WorldACD Market Data. This means tonnage growth for both November (+8%) and December (+6%) had softened to single-digit figures, possibly indicating the beginning of a new more moderate growth trend. This does not come as a surprise, because Q4 was the first quarter of 2023 showing strong growth, so we are now comparing with a higher base.
Total worldwide air cargo tonnages at the start of 2025 recorded only +2% YoY growth in week 1 (30 December to 5 January), although a comparison with the previous year is less straightforward due to the seasonal drop this time of the year, as well as the impact of some severe weather conditions, mainly in the US.
Average global spot rates have started the year +22% above their equivalent levels a year ago, thanks to a +23% year-on-year increase from Asia-Pacific origins and a +59% rise from Middle East & South Asia (MESA) origins, as the relative strength of demand and pricing from those two regions last year looks set to continue into 2025. With global contract rates up by a more-modest +6%, YoY, in the first week, overall average worldwide air cargo rates of US$2.65 per kilo have begun the year +13% higher than this time last year, based on a full-market average of spot rates and contract rates.
Demand ex-Asia Pacific remains strong, but growth rate decelerating
Full-month data for December indicate that worldwide chargeable weight dropped back slightly (-3%), compared with the peak levels recorded in November, due largely to a -6% month-on-month (MoM) decrease from Europe and -2% decrease from Asia Pacific origins, taking worldwide tonnages back to around the level between September and October. However, tonnages from Asia Pacific origins in December were significantly higher than every other month of 2024, apart from November – reflecting a significant ramp up in tonnages from Asia Pacific origins in the final two months of 2024. Indeed, quarterly data indicate that tonnages from Asia Pacific origins were still +6% higher in the fourth quarter (Q4) of 2024, compared with Q3, and +11% higher than their levels in Q4 of 2023.
Nevertheless, that represents a softening of the YoY worldwide demand growth pattern in the final quarter of 2024: total worldwide flown chargeable weight was up, YoY, by +12% in the first two quarters of 2024, decreasing to +11%, YoY, in Q3 and +8%, YoY, in Q4, based on the more than 500,000 weekly transactions covered by WorldACD’s data. Those YoY quarterly global increases were largely driven by growth from Asia Pacific origins, which recorded YoY quarterly increases of +20% in Q1, +19% in Q2, +14% in Q3, and softening to +11%, YoY, in Q4. A similar pattern can be observed for the tonnages from MESA origins, which recorded +27% (YoY) growth in Q1, softening to a +7% YoY quarterly increase in tonnages in Q4. This drop partly reflected a tougher comparison period in the final quarter of 2023, when disruptions to container shipping through the Red Sea had already led to some conversion of ocean freight traffic from that region to air cargo.
But there were significant quarterly YoY tonnage increases throughout most of the year from all the main world air cargo origin regions, which together generated a worldwide full-year increase in air cargo tonnages in 2024 of almost +11% (+10.8%), according to preliminary analysis by WorldACD.
Transatlantic westbound rates soar
On the pricing side, spot rates and full-market average rates from Asia Pacific and MESA origins have been high for much of 2024, although spot prices from those markets eased slightly in the final weeks of the year – and for December as a whole, on a month-on-month (MoM) basis. But one market that has seen a significant increase in spot rates in the final two months of 2024 is the transatlantic westbound market, where the usual seasonal drop in passenger bellyhold capacity from late October was exacerbated by shifts in freighter capacity to Asia Pacific markets, driving up load factors.
Analysis by WorldACD indicates that spot rates from Europe origins to North America in December were up by almost +50%, year on year, reaching a peak of US$3.88 per kilo in week 50, before falling back to $2.95 per kilo in the final week of 2024 – although that price was still up, YoY, by +44%.
