The US domestic air cargo market today is about as big as it was in early 2017 – despite a boom in e-commerce. After growing at about 3.7% per year between 2012 and 2021, flown traffic has dropped by almost 20% since early 2022. The bad news is that we may see more declines in the next 18 months. The good news is that declines are likely to be more moderate. This article looks at the outlook for the US air cargo market and discusses what it means for the demand for air capacity.
Posts tagged as “UPS”
The e-commerce fuelled boom in US domestic air traffic appears to be over. This could have profound implications for the domestic air express business and the need for aircraft capacity in a market that is home to 43% of the world’s freighter fleet. Historically, there has been a strong correlation between growth in online shopping, overall economic growth and traffic moving through US domestic air express, e-commerce and general cargo networks. However, since late 2022 this relationship seems to have broken down – the market declined by 11% when the underlying fundamentals should have led to moderate growth in 2023 and acceleration in 2024.This article digs deeper into the data and provides an explanation as to what is happening.