{"id":71573,"date":"2023-01-24T09:06:49","date_gmt":"2023-01-24T08:06:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.futuribles.com\/lavenir-radieux-du-fret-aerien-dans-nos-achats\/"},"modified":"2023-09-19T09:25:11","modified_gmt":"2023-09-19T07:25:11","slug":"lavenir-radieux-du-fret-aerien-dans-nos-achats","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.futuribles.com\/en\/lavenir-radieux-du-fret-aerien-dans-nos-achats\/","title":{"rendered":"Air freight Has a Bright Future, Thanks to Our Internet Shopping"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Every two years, Boeing Freight publishes its World Air Cargo Forecast<\/em><\/a>. The publication of the latest edition is timely, because although passenger air transport has not yet recovered from the COVID-19 pandemic, air cargo saw a sharp increase in revenues in 2020 and 2021 \u2014 from US$100 billion in 2019 to US$170 billion in 2021 \u2014 even though the volume transported is only now returning to pre-pandemic levels.<\/h6>\n\n\n\n

The initial increase was partly due to the additional need to transport medical supplies during the pandemic and the various lockdowns. While passenger transport was at a standstill, a large part of the goods that are usually carried with passengers, accounting for about half of all air freight, were transferred onto cargo planes instead. In 2021, the continuing increase was instead the result of the growth in the price of maritime container transport, which was linked to the congestion of Chinese ports and the effects of the \u201czero-Covid\u201d policy in that country. Despite a considerable drop in the relative price of air transport compared to sea transport since 2020, air transport remains between four and eight times more expensive than sea transport.<\/p>\n\n\n

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\n Change in Air Cargo Revenues (Millions of US$)\n <\/p>\n <\/div>\n

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Source: <\/em>World Air Cargo Forecast 2022-2041<\/em><\/a>, p. 12.<\/p>\n\n <\/div>\n\n\n\n

The major change, linked to the COVID-19 pandemic, is that for the past two years freight has been carried much more in dedicated cargo planes, with freight carried with passengers (passenger belly capacity) now accounting for only 10% of the sector\u2019s revenues (compared with 50% previously). According to Boeing, this shift towards carrying cargo in dedicated aircraft is sustainable for several reasons: passenger air transport routes do not correspond to the main freight demand routes, their schedules do not correspond to the needs of freight logistics companies, the palletised transport that carriers prefer cannot be used in single-aisle aircraft, and the cargo holds of passenger aircraft cannot carry hazardous materials and are limited in payload.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The other trend is that express air freight, which integrates all logistics and customs clearance on both the outbound and inbound sides, is gaining market share over traditional air freight, which is negotiated solely with an airline. In 2008, express air freight with integrated services accounted for 13.8% of air freight and reached 21% in 2021.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Air transport is not generally used for heavy materials, energy fuels, or agricultural raw materials, and still represents less than 1% of the total tonnage\/load transported. On the other hand, air transport carries expensive, urgent, and perishable goods, such as electronics, mail, and foodstuffs, and accounts for 35% of the value of intercontinental goods transported.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The expansion of e-commerce is expected to drive air freight growth in the future. Indeed, the pandemic and lockdowns have led to a surge in online shopping.<\/p>\n\n\n

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\n Global Online Sales Growth, 2017-2025 (Trillions of US$)\n <\/p>\n <\/div>\n

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Source: <\/em>\u201cA New Era for Air Cargo: How e-Commerce Is Accelerating Logistics Transformation\u201d, IATA, 2021. URL: https:\/\/www.iata.org\/en\/programs\/cargo\/cargo-operations\/e-commerce-logistics\/<\/a>. Accessed 23 January 2023.<\/p>\n\n <\/div>\n\n\n\n

IATA<\/a> (the International Air Transport Association) estimates that e-commerce accounted for 15% of air cargo volumes in 2019, and analyses on a quarterly basis the joint development of online retailers and their integration or partnership with air transport actors.<\/p>\n\n\n

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\n E-Commerce Companies by Model\n <\/p>\n <\/div>\n

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Source: <\/em>\u201cA New Era for Air Cargo: How e-Commerce Is Accelerating Logistics Transformation\u201d, op. cit.<\/em><\/p>\n\n <\/div>\n\n\n\n

We can see that major actors such as Amazon, Alibaba, Taobao, and AliExpress have completely integrated air transport in their operations, with the development of their own fleet for the transport of their customers\u2019 packages, in order to secure deliveries and control costs (i.e., in order to control every step of their value chain). Others prefer partnerships<\/a>: China Airlines with Pinduoduo (online food trade), providing refrigerated transport lines; Lufthansa Cargo with Heyworld (e-commerce logistics), for same-day delivery from airport to airport; and Alibaba\u2019s logistics subsidiary (Cainiao) with Qatar Airways Cargo and Saudia Cargo.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Boeing study forecasts that the sector\u2019s global revenues will more than double by 2026 compared to pre-pandemic levels \u2014 from US$3.4 billion in 2019 to US$8.1 billion in 2026, up from US$1.5 billion in 2015. For airlines, cargo has been an important means for diversification and financial risk reduction during the pandemic, just as sea freight companies have invested in aircraft to diversify their transport offering. Analysis of the freighter fleet in Q4 2022 indicates that there are now around forty additional air cargo operators (including CMA-CGM in France, in association with Air France-KLM), plus airlines that have added dedicated freighters to their fleets that had previously carried freight only on passenger aircraft.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the future, Boeing forecasts that world trade growth will slightly exceed world economic growth and reach 2.8% per year. This would lead to a doubling of air cargo traffic over twenty years, with air cargo growth averaging 4.1% per year, measured as \u201crevenue tonne kilometres\u201d. The increase in demand is expected to be driven mainly by growth in trade from East Asia to North America and Europe, as well as intra-Asian trade.<\/p>\n\n\n

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\n Average Annual Growth 2022-2041 of Air Cargo in Freight Planes (Measured in Billion Revenue Tonne Kilometres and %)\n <\/p>\n <\/div>\n

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Source: <\/em>World Air Cargo Forecast 2022-2041<\/em><\/a>,<\/em> p. 16.<\/p>\n\n <\/div>\n\n\n\n

Prior to the pandemic, cargo aircraft accounted for only 8% of the air fleet (and 50% of air freight). By the end of 2021, these aircraft represented 10% of the total fleet and nearly 70% of air cargo by volume, while passenger traffic had not yet recovered to pre-pandemic levels. The prospect of strong growth in air freight has led Boeing to predict an 80% increase in the number of cargo aircraft compared to 2019: 2,010 in 2019, 2,240 in 2021, and 3,610 in 2041. But more than 1,800 of this 2041 fleet would consist of passenger aircraft converted into cargo aircraft.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That said, Boeing\u2019s long-term forecasts may seem optimistic with regard to the growth of world trade, as the recent boom in air freight is reflected more in revenue than in tonnes carried. Recent data shows, on the contrary, a slowdown in volumes:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2014 Sea freight is stagnating after peaking in the first half of 2022, driven by a decrease in Western consumption. For example, China\u2019s exports to Europe fell by 9% in October 2022<\/a>, year-on-year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2014 According to IATA, in 2022, global air cargo activity by volume, measured in cargo tonne kilometres (CTK), declined by 10.6% year-on-year<\/a> and by 3.6% compared to 2019.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

However, air operators share Boeing\u2019s expectations for a bright future for air freight, and placed new orders<\/a> for dedicated cargo aircraft from both Boeing and Airbus<\/a> in 2022. The main players in air freight are US companies (notably freight specialists Fedex and UPS), with several Chinese operators in the top twelve carriers (see table below).<\/p>\n\n\n

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Source<\/em>: Jeffrey Rebecca, \u201cTop 25 Air Cargo Carriers for 2021 Revealed<\/a>\u201d, Aircargo News, <\/em>18 August 2022.<\/p>\n\n <\/div>\n\n\n\n

But if this explosion in e-commerce largely corresponds to a growth in Chinese supplies to Europe, then Chinese operators are in a much better position to take advantage of it than European operators, since only they can fly over Russian airspace in these times of war.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This translation from French has been revised by Sam Ferguson.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Every two years, Boeing Freight publishes its World Air Cargo Forecast. The publication of the latest edition is timely, because although passenger air transport has not yet recovered from the COVID-19 pandemic, air cargo saw a sharp increase in revenues in 2020 and 2021 \u2014 from US$100 billion in 2019 to US$170 billion in 2021 … Continued<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12,"featured_media":62401,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_seopress_titles_title":"%%post_title%%","_seopress_titles_desc":"Every two years, Boeing Freight publishes its World Air Cargo Forecast. The publication of the latest edition is timely, because although passenger air transpor","_seopress_robots_index":"","_seopress_robots_follow":"","_seopress_robots_imageindex":"","_seopress_robots_snippet":"","_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"none","_seopress_robots_breadcrumbs":"","_seopress_robots_freeze_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_custom_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_canonical":"","_seopress_social_fb_title":"","_seopress_social_fb_desc":"","_seopress_social_fb_img":"","_seopress_social_fb_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_height":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_title":"","_seopress_social_twitter_desc":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_height":0,"_seopress_redirections_value":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled_regex":"","_seopress_redirections_logged_status":"both","_seopress_redirections_param":"","_seopress_redirections_type":301,"_seopress_analysis_target_kw":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[140],"tags":[133,212],"keyword":[1426,1427,1428,1218],"class_list":["post-71573","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-newswatch","tag-economie-et-emploi-en","tag-societe-en","keyword-transport-aerien-en","keyword-fret-en","keyword-logistique-en","keyword-commerce-en"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.futuribles.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/71573","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.futuribles.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.futuribles.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.futuribles.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/12"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.futuribles.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=71573"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.futuribles.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/71573\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":79960,"href":"https:\/\/www.futuribles.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/71573\/revisions\/79960"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.futuribles.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/62401"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.futuribles.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=71573"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.futuribles.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=71573"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.futuribles.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=71573"},{"taxonomy":"keyword","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.futuribles.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/keyword?post=71573"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}