A Boeing recently released its biennial World Air Cargo Forecast (WACF), reflecting the impacts and opportunities of COVID-19, as well as the substantial long-term demand for freighters over the next two decades.
Boeing's study forecasts demand for 2430 freighters over the next 20 years, including 930 new production freighters and 1500 freighters converted from enger planes.
According to the new forecast, world air cargo traffic will grow by 4% per year over the next 20 years. This growth is driven by trade and the increase in express shipments to the expansion of e-commerce operations.
With these developments and the proven need for dedicated freighter capacity to the world's transportation system, the global air cargo fleet is expected to grow by more than 60% by 2039.
China is expected to be the place with the highest growth in the fleet of all-cargo aircraft.
“Freighter operators were uniquely positioned in 2020 to meet market requirements for speed, reliability and safety, transporting medical supplies and other goods for people and communities around the world”, said Darren Hulst, Vice President of Trade Marketing. “Looking to the future, dedicated freighters will be even more critical to competing in air cargo markets; they carry more than half of air cargo traffic, and the airlines that operate them earn nearly 90% of the air cargo industry's revenue.”
In addition to projecting long-term demand for freighters, the WACF provides insights into air cargo performance during the pandemic, including the following:
- E-commerce, which was growing at double-digit rates before the pandemic, has accelerated its impact on the air cargo market as more companies have switched to online selling platforms. Year-to-date through September, express operators increased traffic by 14%.
- Cargo carried on enger planes, which in 2019 ed for around half of the world's air cargo capacity, has been significantly reduced as airlines parked thousands of planes. Freighter operators responded by operating above normal utilization levels, and traffic to freight carriers grew by 6%.
- So far in 2020, approximately 200 airlines have used more than 2.000 widebody enger aircraft for cargo-only operations to generate cash flow and global supply chains. These enger freighters made up for some of the capacity shortage and, in some cases, generated quarterly profits for carriers despite minimal enger operations.
The full cargo market forecast can be found at www.boeing.com/wacf .
