Freight traffic for European airlines fell 12.7 percent in October, the slimmest decline of a dreadful year in air cargo, helped by a 30.7 percent surge in trade on Middle East routes, the Association of European Airlines said.
But freight traffic on Europe’s largest trade lanes, to the Far East, was still down 20.9 percent from the same month a year ago.
Traffic on Atlantic routes was sharply better, however, and the AEA said freight traffic in the relatively small mid-Atlantic actually grew 4.9 percent. Traffic on the larger North Atlantic lanes was off 10.7 percent, the best showing of 2009.
The somewhat improved October left freight traffic for the European airlines down 19.1 percent in the first 10 months of the year compared to the same period a year ago, with the last month of the peak shipping season still unreported.
The improvement wasn’t spread around evenly. Scandinavian Airline System saw cargo traffic slide 44.4 percent in October, and remained 44.4 percent off in the first half of the year.
The Journal of Commerce Online
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