Cargo will remain significant to airlines next year

Demand for air cargo was more robust than air travel in July, the IATA said in a webinar on Wednesday. Air cargo traffic volume, expressed in terms of tonne km flown, was down only 13.5% year over year in July, compared to a 79.8% year-over-year drop in global passenger traffic in the same month. “Cargo business is becoming more important, because it is providing a partial offset to the collapse in passenger revenues,” said Brian Pearce, IATA Chief Economist. “We think for the next year or so, it’s likely to be much more significant – unfortunately, not significant enough to offset the continued weakness,” he added. Cargo industry has also been suffering from a significant number of challenges. As the world has gone into lockdown at different degrees of severity, it has become difficult to get qualified staff to the airport to help offload the cargo to process it through the facility. “Because cargo is very precious. And it needs to be handled in such a critical manner. It also means that certain training validity requirements which would otherwise have expired,” said Glyn Hughes, IATA’s Global Head of Cargo. There have also been challenges in addressing closed airspace, closed airports, and crew restrictions, as countries have implemented quarantine procedures and restrictions on people returning to a country, he added. Capacity has continued to be the “biggest” challenge, Hughes said, despite the industry’s “innovative” response to the problem. Airlines have begun removing seats from passenger aircraft to carry greater cargo volumes, while installing specific and unique tracking systems that the cargo can be safely secured to.<br/>