THE air cargo industry continues to be hindered by a range of issues that resulted in volume declines deepening in April, reports London's Air Cargo News.

Air cargo volumes declined eight per cent year on year in April following from a 4.5 per cent fall in March.

Meanwhile, capacity increased one per cent year on year in April, resulting in a nine percentage point fall in the global dynamic load factor to 62 per cent.

However, load factors were exceptionally high in April last year at 71 per cent.

CLIVE declared that the conflict in Ukraine and Covid restrictions, and the rising cost of living were all having an impact on air cargo.

Meanwhile, air freight rates in April increased 26 per cent from last year.

"The rationale behind lower load factors and higher rates is the bottleneck on the ground - which appears to be being caused now by not only the shortages of people handling cargo at airports around the world and the severe lack of truck drivers to move the goods, but also by a wider shortage of people for lower paid logistics jobs," said Xeneta air freight officer Niall van de Wouw.

"We are now seeing this larger theme impacting the entire supply chain."

Mr Wouw declared shortages of goods in stores or available online, longer lead times for some products, higher shipping costs, and flight delays and cancellations are all consequences of these market conditions.

"The hike in living costs and lower disposable incomes for consumers are other undoubted contributors to the slowdown in volumes," said Mr Wouw.

Source Shipping Gazette