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As many as 70 Boeing 747-400 and MD-11 freighters were parked in the years following the 2008 global financial crisis, with many remaining unused for long stretches or retired altogether. The fact that this many large cargo aircraft that traditionally carry goods on the world's lucrative east-west trade lanes were unneeded speaks volumes about the plight of air cargo.
FedEx founder, chairman and CEO Frederick Smith has been giving speeches throughout this year in which he has declared the "air cargo golden age" - character-ized by decades of strong, consistent global airfreight traffic growth - over. And looking at the air cargo traffic figures reported by the industry quarter after quarter, it's hard to dispute the argument that the glory years - in which global airfreight traffic increased year after year almost without exception, averaging more than 6% annual growth - have indeed passed.
But certainly air cargo remains a vital component of air transport and of the world economy. After all, as IATA DG and CEO Tony Tyler has pointed out, "This year, more than $6.8 trillion worth of goods, equivalent to 35% of total world trade by value, will be transported around the world by air."
A recent PricewaterhouseCoopers survey found that "air cargo executives are bullish on their own organizations, but less confident about the sector's performance as a whole." That perhaps best captures the mood of the air cargo industry: there are many opportunities for specific air cargo services and business models to succeed, but the prospects for the whole sector - compared to the overall positive feeling of the "golden age" - are very uncertain.
American Way
The new American Airlines, the world's largest airline, believes it is one of the operators that can have airfreight success by creating a far-reaching network for carrying cargo around the world. In late October, American and US Airways unified under a single air waybill, effectively completing the combination of the cargo divisions of the merging airlines.
The carriers don't expect to gain a single operating certificate from FAA until late next year, but cargo has become the "first operations division at the airline to be fully integrated," American said. The new American Airlines Cargo will generate $800 million in annual revenue moving more...