CAPE TOWN - The air freight industry is bouncing back fast and over 20 000 tons of cargo was transported in December in spite of curfews and international flight limitations, Ctrack SA managing director Hein Jordt said on Friday.
He was commenting on the Ctrack Freight and Transport Index for December 2020, which had declined by less than 2 percent compared to December 2019, which was an indication of economic recovery of the trade and transport of goods.
For the fourth quarter of 2020 the index was up 5.3 percent over to the third quarter.
Jordt said that in South Africa, airfreight had received no government aid during the lockdown, space was at a premium as there were fewer flights, and prices rose by 200-300 percent.
“The improvement of air freight in the final quarter as measured by Ctrack of 30.6 percent is nothing short of a miracle. This is amazing if one takes into account there was less international travel and fewer scheduled flights and shows the resilience of this sector,” he said.
He said however further recovery in 2021 of airfreight was expected to be slow, as passenger air traffic was still far below normal levels, and this was likely to continue for some time.
Airfreight comprises only 2 percent of the freight that crosses the border by weight, compared to the 60 percent of sea freight, however air freight makes up about 30 percent of the value of cross-border trade.
He said it did seem that an increasing number of cargo planes were taking to the skies. About 80 aircraft had been dedicated to the worldwide vaccine roll-out.
Local air freight was showing positive growth, but the extended curfew and border closures were expected to have a negative impact in January and February, he said.
However, current predictions were this would only be a short-lived hurdle, with the curfew expected to end in the middle of February and borders to open in March, he said.
Sectors that rely on fast-moving high-end goods like mobile phones, tablets, laptops and medical equipment, could not withstand another lengthy period of disruption in the air freight business, he added.
While the index showed an economy returning to normal, the government needed to ease restrictions on sectors such as travel, for the industry to show further recovery, said Jordt.
The Ctrack Freight and Transport index was still tracking 5.6 percent below its 2019 high and 7 percent below its all time high early in 2018.
On a quarter-to-quarter basis storage grew by 13.1 percent.
The growth in storage was attributed to a less than perfect Black November retail campaign that resulted in a surplus of retail goods and supply chain disruption fears.
Despite the long border delays at two of South Africa’s most important border posts, truck attacks and a host of other problems, the trucking industry did better than expected.
The only sector of the index that showed negative growth in the quarter was rail, with a 2 percent decline. There were unconfirmed reports of rail tracks being stolen in some areas which may have had some effect, he said.
BUSINESS REPORT