Preliminary figures released by the Association of Asia Pacific Airlines (AAPA) for August, point to a slowly recovering air cargo sector. For the month of August, international cargo traffic for AAPA member airlines in terms of freight tonne kilometres rose to 3.9 million FTK, a very close second to July’s 3.95 million FTK. While tonnage was still 12.2 per cent below last August, the figure was second to July’s 11.4 per cent drop from last year and a healthy improvement over the previous eight months where cargo traffic was down almost 20 per cent year-on-year. The August 12.2 decline in cargo volumes was nearly matched by a 12.9 per cent reduction in cargo capacity leading to an average international cargo load factor of 66.9 per cent for the month.