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28 March 2024

Mideast airfreight traffic up 24.7% in December

Tonnes is the volume of air freight from the Middle East in December 2009 as compared to 302.5 tonnes in November last year, according to figures released. (REUTERS)

Published
By Sunil Kumar Singh

Airfreight movement in the Middle East is continuing its upward trend, registering a 24.7 per cent growth in December compared to the same period last year.

Latest airfreight traffic figures released by Airports Council International (ACI) says the volume of freight traffic in the Middle East marginally increased to 305.6 tonnes in December 2009, from 302.5 tonnes in November 2009.

The Asia-Pacific region, which includes India, ranks first. Next came the North American airfreight followed by Europe, Latin America and Caribbean and Africa.

A year-on-year comparison of growth rate, however, placed the Middle East second with Asia-Pacific topping the list by registering a 33.8 per cent in airfreight traffic, according to the figures.

The Middle East registered 24.7 per cent growth in December 2009 compared to December 2008.

The third best-performing region was Europe, recording a y-o-y growth of 19.6 per cent, followed by North America with 14.8 per cent, Africa with 13.7 per cent and the airfreight in Latin America and Caribbean growing at 8.9 per cent.

“This strong result illustrates the mounting confidence in the global economic recovery and significant pent-up demand. Nonetheless, it is too early to consider this performance as a future indicator of a sustainable economic recovery as this rebound is more of a technical than fundamental nature,” the ACI said in a statement.

However, the data released by ACI for the whole of 2009 showed a global decline in the airfreight traffic, except for the Middle East.

The year-to-date freight traffic saw the steepest decline in Africa at minus14.6 per cent; followed by Latin America and Caribbean region at minus 14.1 per cent; Europe minus 12.6 per cent; North America minus 9.2 per cent and the Asia-Pacific region seeing the least decline at minus 5.9 per cent.

The regional ranking for the 12 months is in the same order as the ranking for the year-to-date freight traffic for 11 months of last year.

 

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