Another year over – almost – and for pretty much most of the air cargo industry it’s probably a year best forgotten. But as we are, here on the eve of the year-end and a brand new year awaits just around the corner, one cannot help but detect the scent of optimism in air.

On the bright side, it appears industry opinion is unanimous that the worst is over and the world is unlikely to plunge back into turmoil in a much feared and – oh so cruel – double dip.

Certainly the unexpected peak season that actually left shippers scrambling for capacity out of Asian airports – especially Hong Kong – much to the joy of charter specialists, gave the industry a well needed lift.

More good news arrived on my desk today with IATA’s latest Cargo E-chartbook for the fourth quarter pointing to “more consistent signs of an improvement in the air freight business”. Volumes and yields are now moving in the right direction, it said. October’s global air freight volumes are just 0.5 per cent below the same month last year, something that seemed impossible only a few months back. But that only takes the market half way back to the levels of 2008, IATA rightly points out.

So it’s too early to pop the champagne corks, as the start of the yield recovery could easily be de-railed by any surge in capacity coming back online – but at least things are up. January and February will likely give a clearer perspective on what this new year holds in store.

Aside from the clear-air turbulence that caught pretty much everybody without their seat belts fastened, it has been an eventful year on a number of other fronts as well.

The lingering smell of burnt fingers from betting badly on the once record-high fuel prices combined with ever-increasing environmental pressure set the industry off on a race to bio-fuel nirvana. And this is clearly a good thing – for not only the environment and airlines’ profitability, but geo-politics also.

The year may well be remembered as a tipping point in environmental change for the industry. With first the high oil prices and then the bottoming out of the air cargo market, older, less efficient aircraft were the first to be parked, many unlikely to ever leave their desert parking spots.

The need for modern fuel efficient aircraft, not only in the passenger realm, but for perhaps the first time, also in the cargo sector has never been clearer.

Significant gains were also made over the last year in striving for a freer, more liberalised air industry – not only in terms of open skies, but in terms of alliances, partnerships and consolidation. There is still a long way to go on all of these fronts, but the politicians and bureaucrats around the world seem to be getting the message that over-regulation is slowly-but-surely strangling the industry.

It was also, sadly, a year of significant tragedy, both for the passenger and cargo sides of the business, the most tragic of which, was the mystery of Air France flight 447 that went down with all aboard off the coast of Brazil. The cargo side too lost personnel, including the very visible crash at Tokyo’s Narita airport of a FedEx MD11 and more recently an Avient MD11 in Shanghai.

But there were also moments of human triumph as well, as in the case of the socalled “Miracle on the Hudson”, in which the pilot of a US Airways A320 safely ditched his plane in the Hudson River with no loss of life.

And so, we turn the page on another year, another chapter of the air freight industry thriller that seems to have a plot guaranteed not to bore. From all of us at Payload Asia enjoy a peaceful festive season, have a very Happy New year and allthe best in 2010!