Monthly freight load factor change in the aviation industry by region 2020-2021

Compared to the previous year, the global aviation industry's freight load factor (FLF) recovered despite the coronavirus outbreak in December 2021. The freight load factor (FLF) for airlines in the Asia Pacific region increased by one percent in that month.

Air freight market worldwide

Air freight is a crucial means of transport of goods for industries that perform under restricted timespan. Its operations enable a firm to realize a transportation within a few hours instead of days or weeks. Nonetheless, it is the least cost-effective for most of the industrial organizations. Between 2009 and 2019, air freight traffic continued to recover back to its pre-2008 crisis level. The global air freight market size is forecasted to increase between 2019 and 2022 exponentially, reaching 37 million metric tons.

Impact of COVID-19 on the air freight market

Despite the slowdowns in the air freight levels since 2020, countries imposed less strict measures on air freight cargo compared to the passenger aviation, which is estimated to experience a 370 billion U.S. revenue loss in 2020. As the cross-border transportation is banned in many countries, air freight cargo may become an alternative to transport goods until the COVID-19 has been contained. Besides, in the last months of 2021, the air freight rates between Hong Kong and Europe, and Hong Kong and North America have increased.

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