subject: Japan - Prospects for worldwide courier freight forecast to improve [print this page] Japan - Prospects for worldwide courier freight forecast to improve
Large increases in demand for worldwide freight by air are showing no sign of slowing, and have prompted international experts to revise upwards their forecasts for the fortunes of the air freight business in 2010.
The International Air Transport Association (IATA) released a second series of forecasts for the year's trends in the international freight market at the start of June 2010, which show that the growth rate of 12 per cent, forecast three months earlier, was looking a conservative estimate.
IATA's June forecast for the level of demand for worldwide shipping by air was revised upwards to 18.5 per cent annual growth. It also showed that Japan shipping was experiencing one of the fastest growth rates in the world.
This reflected confident predictions for the performance of the Asian economies as a whole, where growth was expected to reach seven per cent almost two and a half times faster than the overall growth rate predicted for the rest of the world. If that level of growth was achieved, IATA forecast that profits among carriers based across the Far East would approach $2.2billion in 2010. This figure was double the amount forecast just three months earlier, and represented a massive transformation in fortunes over 2009, when the airline industry posted losses of $2.7billion.
The news was welcomed by IATA Director General and CEO, Giovanni Bisignani, who said that airlines were experiencing a strong rebound in traffic levels, which showed that, globally, economies were recovering far more quickly from the low point of the worldwide downturn than could have been expected.
However, he added a note of caution by saying that, globally, margins were still much lower than was needed for worldwide air transport to achieve sustained profitability, while European international air freight and passenger carriers were performing much more sluggishly than those elsewhere in the world, and had yet to return to consistent profit-making.
Having said that, IATA's figures suggested that air freight was on course to achieve a profit yield of 4.5 per cent for the rest of 2010 a figure which was 50 per cent higher than that forecast at the start of the year.
While international freight has always been a high-cost, low yield business, IATA says that stable oil prices are also helping courier freight companies plan the use of their resources more effectively.
This is great news for air freight customers, as it means that capacity is available to help them take advantage of improving business conditions, putting them in a good position to be able to win more business, and in the process continue to meet existing customers' expectations.
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