KUALA LUMPUR (May 29): The US-China trade war pulled down global freight volume by 4.7% year-on-year (y-o-y) in April 2019, according to the International Air Transport Association (IATA).

This continued the negative trend in y-o-y demand that began in January.

IATA director general and CEO Alexandre de Juniac said Asia-Pacific, which accounts for a 35.4% share of the world's air freight market, saw the biggest drop in volume by 7.4% y-o-y, followed by Europe and the Middle East which saw a 6.2% decline.

"April saw a sharp decline in air cargo growth and the trend is clearly negative this year. Cost inputs are rising, trade tensions are affecting confidence, and global trade is weakening," he told a telephone press briefing today.

"Airlines are adjusting their capacity growth to try and fall into line with the dip in global trade since the end of 2018. It all adds up to a challenging year ahead for the cargo business. Governments should respond by easing trade barriers in order to drive economic activity," he added.

The airline grouping is set to downgrade its 2019 air freight forecast at the upcoming IATA annual general meeting this weekend, after the latest air freight traffic figures for April. In December last year, IATA had projected 2019 freight volume to grow by 3.7% to 65.9 million tonnes.

Global passenger demand, measured in revenue passenger kilometers, for April 2019, meanwhile, was up 4.3% y-o-y.

"April capacity (measured in available seat kilometers) also increased by 3.6%, while load factor climbed 0.6 percentage point to 82.8% – which was a record for the month of April," said IATA.

On a regional basis, Asia-Pacific airlines posted a 2.9% traffic rise in April, up from 2% growth in March, but well below the long-term average.

"Capacity climbed 3.7% and load factor dropped 0.6 percentage point to 80.8%. Asia-Pacific was the only region to experience a decline in load factor compared with the same month a year ago."

IATA said the results largely reflect the slowdown in global trade, including the impact from the China-US trade tensions on the broader region, which continue to weigh on passenger demand.