Boeing Forecast Air Cargo Industry

Boeing Forecast Air Cargo Industry

Seock-Jin HONG, Professor, Bordeaux Management School (BEM)
 

Boeing and Airbus disclosed forecast of air traffic volume and airplane demand (Figure 1). Global economic growth is expected to average 3.2 percent over the next 20 years, fostering 5.0 percent annual growth in passenger traffic and 5.2 percent annual growth in cargo traffic (Boeing, 2012). Boeing has forecasted passenger traffic more than world economy growth (GDP) from 1.8%p to 2.2%p. However, in terms of cargo traffic, the differences between GDP and cargo are decreasing 3.4%p in 2000 to 2%p in 2012. Not only the difference but annual growth rate decrease from 6.4% in 2000 to 5.2% in 2012.

Asia-Pacific region has leaded air cargo volume. So, the region’s growth rate for next 20 years is 1.5%p more than North America and 1.4%p more than Europe. The differences of cargo growth rate are less growth rate than GDP (2%p, 2.7%p each), airplane demand ( 2.3%p, 4.1%p), passenger traffic ( 3.6%p-2.3%p).

Air cargo result of worldwide in 2011, based on ACI statistics, showed -0.1% than 2010, Asia-Pacific region performed -3.0% (Figure 3). Cargo traffic in 2011 at major airports in Asia-Pacific declined a lot, such as Hong Kong, Shanghai, Incheon, Narita, Taipei, Kansai. Nevertheless, small and medium airports in Asia-Pacific and Europe grew very high, such as Guangzhou, Shenzen, Leipzig, Cologne. Furthermore, airports who hadn’t invested cargo, increased the cargo traffic rate such as Beijing and Haneda airport.

Liberalization; increasing risks in supply chain network; new aircraft development and oil price impact on cargo demand. New aircraft development such as B777, A330 (B787, A350 in near future) is increasing international long haul connection between small and medium cities in different continents. And liberalization, especially between United States of America and China, has mounted up direct connection between two big countries.

Air cargo demand correlate to long-haul passenger demand (Boeing, 2002). So, increasing direct long-haul passenger connection through new developed airplane and expanding liberalization impacts negatively on cargo demand at major hub airport. Globalization has being promoted supply chain network. Globalized supply chain network expose more on risk. And then logistics service provider is developing more multi-modal transport as well as alternative transport in terms of long-haul cargo transport using rail and maritime transport This phenomenon will be not only economic depression coming from European financial crisis but will be last long.

Firgure 1 GDP and Air traffic volume forecast from 2012 to 2031

	World	Asia- Pacific	North America	Europe	Latin America	CIS	Africa	Middle East
GDP	3.2%	4.6%	2.6%	1.9%	4.1%	3.4%	4.4%	3.9%
Aircraft	3.5%	5.5%	1.4%	3.2%	5.1%	1.7%	3.4%	4.8%
Pax(RPK)	5.0%	6.4%	2.8%	4.1%	6.6%	4.7%	5.6%	6.4%
Cargo (RTK)	5.2%	5.9%	4.5%	4.6%	5.9%	5.0%	5.8%	5.7%

(Source, Boeing, 2012)

Figure 2 Growth measure from 2000 to 2012 for next 20-year

	2000	2002	2004	2006	2008	2010	2012
GDP	3.0%	2.9%	3.0%	3.1%	3.2%	3.2%	3.2%
Pax(RPK)	4.8%	4.9%	5.2%	4.9%	5.0%	5.3%	5.0%
Cargo(RTK)	6.4%	6.4%	6.2%	6.1%	5.8%	5.9%	5.2%

(Source, Boeing, 2000-2010)

Figure 3 International Cargo results in2011

Region	Cargo Volume (Ton)	Change rate to 2010
Africa	1,300,233	5.9%
Asia-Pacific	20,993,496	-3.0%
Europe	13,218,501	1.8%
Latin America	3,216,553	6.2%
Middle East	5,391,681	1.8%
North America	9,307,266	-0.1%
All ACI member	53,428,230	-0.1%

(Source, ACI, 2012)

Figure 4 World busiest’s airports in 2011

Rank	Airports	Cargo Volume (Ton)	Change rate to 2010
1	Hong Kong, China	3,968,397	-4.7 %
2	Memphis, USA	3,916,535	0.0 %
3	Shanghai, China	3,103,030	-4.3 %
4	Anchorage, USA	2,625,201	0.5 %
5	Inchaon, Korea	2,579,222	-5.4 %
6	Dubai, Emirate	2,269,768	0
7	Frankfurt, Germany	2,215,181	-2.6
8	Louisville, USA	2,187,766	1.0
9	Paris, France	2,095,773	-4.0
10	Narita, Japan	1,945,110	-10.3
14	Beijing, China	1,668,751	7.7
15	Taipei, Taiwan	1,627,461	-7.9
17	Amsterdam, Netherland	1,549,686	0.8
21	Guangzhou, China	1,193,036	4.2
23	Haneda, Japan	873,016	6.7
24	Shenzen, China	826,022	4.2
27	Leipzig, Germany	743,981	16.5
28	Kansai, Japan	742,976	-2.1
29	Cologne, Germany	726,259	12.8

(Source, ACI, 2012)
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