The global airfreight industry faced a strong increase in demand for transportation space in November and December, which contributed to a backlog of goods shipped from China to Europe and resulted steep freight rate increases.
It appears that transportation capacity constraints will continue as a number of airlines are reluctant to increase cargo uplift capacity, which was reduced due to the global economic downturn. The cost of reactivating temporarily grounded aircraft is high.
While the demand for airfreight capacity traditionally drops after the year-end holiday, causing freight rates to drop significantly, the current capacity outlook and latest customer forecasts for the first quarter of 2010 indicate a continuation of airfreight capacity constraints on the North Asia to Europe trade lanes.
Airfreight out of China, Hong Kong, Korea and Taiwan is in particularly high demand, with the next peak expected to occur before the Chinese New Year in February.
