Air freight volume worldwide is set to grow to 36m tonnes within five years, representing an annual growth rate of less than 5% according to new forecasts by IATA (International Air Transport Association). Freight, however, will be affected by lower economic growth, with annual average global growth rates of 4.8%.
As to be expected, the driver of traffic will be operations in and out of Asia-Pacific with a growth rate of 5.4%. Both Europe and North America will show lower than the average growth rates at 4.3% and 3.9% respectively. Within Europe however, Central and Eastern Europe will show buoyant growth of between 6 to 8%. These projections are largely based on extrapolations from existing trends combined with assumptions about future levels of macro-economic growth. They do point to certain mis-matches between passenger and freight which will also affect the market.
