Airfreight capacity cuts: just temporary turbulence or a sign of things to come?

摘要

About a year ago, Boeing's World Air Cargo Forecast was so enthused about the increasing number of shippers turning to air cargo to support their now global supply chains, it projected world air cargo to grow 6.1% per year and to triple by 2025. Sure, the alarm bells about a faltering US economy were going off after the collapse of the US housing bubble, but airfreight is all about the global economy and not many analysts were expecting a slowdown in that juggernaut. Also important was the fact that air cargo represented the type of freight every carrier dreams of: the most valuable kind. Sure, only about 5% of world freight moves by air if you measure it by weight, but air cargo represents over 36% of all global transported cargo by value. Think back to your holiday shopping list - how many DVD players, digital cameras, video games and other lightweight but valuable electronic gadgets were on it? As a super-confident Tom Crabtree, regional director of marketing for Boeing Commercial Airplanes' Air Cargo Industry Analysis Group, told the media back then: "Short of an environment collapse, such as the world being hit by an asteroid, this indicates that the air cargo industry has no where to go but up."