The current state of air cargo capacity

The evolution of air cargo and global trade

As a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, the world stopped traveling. Closed borders and strict travel requirements meant that actual flight movements were severely impacted, which caused a knock-on effect on air cargo logistics and global trade. But whilst the world returns to the skies once again, air cargo industry players are adapting to a very different landscape.

With our comprehensive, reliable and up-to-date demand and supply databases, our travel industry practice is able to provide insights and data on global air cargo capacity, express and ocean freight demand and capacity on a regular basis.

Global international air cargo capacity was down -5% (vs. 2019) between July 18-31, 2022

Transpacific capacity has gradually come down, now low single-digits above 2019 levels

Note: July 18-31, 2022 compared to July 15-28, 2019; Direct international flights only; all flows indicate region-to-region capacity; regions indicated by color; dates in UTC; 1) Total air cargo capacity includes widebody passenger and all freighter flights;

Source: Seabury Cargo Capacity Tracking database, Seabury Cargo, Accenture analysis (August 2022)

Actual and scheduled passenger belly capacity are increasingly out of sync, due to airport and airline disruptions

Consistent underperformance of operated flights (vs. schedule) may imply that the -29% summer capacity schedule (versus 2019) will not be achieved.

Note: Summer schedule includes months April through October

Source: Seabury Cargo Capacity Tracking & Scheduled Capacity databases; Seabury Cargo, Accenture analysis (August 2022)