Global Airlines tweak capacity levels to address flat demand during July

Global airlines managed the traditional summer slack season for air cargo space in July by constantly tweaking capacity levels to address flat demand during the month versus pre-Covid levels.
New industry volume, loadfactor and rates data from analysts CLIVE Data Services and TAC Index also highlight airfreight rates lagging two weeks behind changes in the demand and supply ratio. As in previous months of 2021, to provide meaningful analyses of the current state of the global air cargo market, CLIVE continues to measure performance to pre-Covid 2019 levels as well as providing 2020 year-over-year comparisons. This shows chargeable weight was flat in July versus 2019 and up by 23 percent over 2020.
Capacity, however, remains tightly constrained. Available capacity, up by 29 percent compared to 2020, is still down by 18 percent below the level seen in 2019 before the pandemic took hold. Consequently, CLIVE saw a fluctuating ‘dynamic loadfactor’ in July. Reduced capacity contributed to up by 5 percent pts rise in dynamic loadfactor versus 2019 – measured against both the volume and weight perspectives of cargo flown and capacity available – but down 3 percent pts drop over the same month in 2020.