Global air cargo tonnage up 12% in H12024 on Asia Pacific, MESA gains

Worldwide air cargo tonnage increased 12 percent, year-on-year, in the first half of 2024, driven by a 19 percent YoY increase from the big Asia Pacific origin region and a 20 percent rise from Middle East & South Asia (MESA) origins, according to the latest update from WorldACD.

“Average rate declined eight percent, driven by the huge decline in Europe (-26 percent) and North America (-17 percent). MESA was the only region to report a 27 percent increase."

Asia currently dominates the world’s top outbound air cargo growth markets with countries in Asia filling all of the top five export tonnage growth positions in June, the update added.

"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 23,000 tonnes, compared with June 2023, a year-on-year YoY rise of +17 percent 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 13,000 tonnes (+18 percent), Thailand (9,000 tonnes, +25 percent), China East (7,000 tonnes, +8 percent) and India (7,000 tonnes, +8 percent).

For the first half of 2024, the combined outbound tonnages from China and Hong Kong rose by 24 percent compared with the first six months of 2023. This strong rate of YoY growth in 2024 follows a 12 percent YoY rise for the full year 2023.

US dominates inbound rankings
On the inbound side, the USA Pacific States subregion again tops the monthly rankings in June for total increases in chargeable weight with a YoY increase of 13,000 tonnes (+16 percent), followed by the UAE (10,000 tonnes, +17 percent) and Germany (9,000 tonnes, +13 percent).