Airports Council International (ACI) statistics show diverging results for passenger and air freight traffic in the month of May. Robust growth in passenger traffic was led by Asia-Pacific and the Middle East, but on the other hand, weak growth in air freight coupled with significant declines in major international air freight hubs raises concerns about the second half of the year.

While international tourism remains buoyant, the weaker than expected economic performance of Europe and the slowdown of international exports from Asia signal ongoing trepidations.

Total air freight growth dipped to a one-year low of 1.3 per cent. Out of top 30 airports by air freight traffic, 15 posted a decrease in total freight volumes from the previous year. Paris (CDG) and Miami (MIA) declined by a substantial 7.6 and 5.7 per cent, respectively. Other major freight hubs—Frankfurt (FRA), Taipei (TPE), Tokyo (NRT) and Bangkok (BKK)—followed with 3.4, 2.9, 2.7 and 2.7 per cent declines in freight volumes respectively.

The ongoing concerns in the Euro area are reflected in a 0.6 per cent decrease in total freight as compared to the previous year, while domestic freight in Europe is in decline by a significant 5.6 per cent and international freight is down slightly by 0.5 per cent.

The Middle East is outpacing Asia-Pacific with 4.4 per cent versus 1.6 per cent growth in total freight, while North America and Latin America each show 1.1 per cent growth in total freight traffic. Africa posted an optimistic 10.3 per cent increase, driven by total freight traffic growth of 9.4 and 15.9 per cent in Johannesburg (JNB) and Casablanca (CMN), respectively.