Africa:Demand from Africa a rare bright spot in gloomy global trade
Despite the global air cargo turmoil, carriers are confident that the westbound Asia-Africa trade will continue to offer good prospects. Correspondent Phil Hastings looks at the airlines focusing on the African continent
Chinese investment in African infrastructure has provided a significant boost to air cargo traffic between Asia and Africa over the past two or three years.
At the same time, soaring worldwide demand for Africa’s oil/gas resources, minerals and other commodities has generated more wealth in various parts of that continent, with a resulting increase in African consumer spending on imported goods from China and other Asian sources.
“Air cargo from Asia to Africa has seen double-digit growth in recent years although we have not seen the same trend for Africa-Asia traffic,” said Nely Kusmin, regional manager, Asia Pacific, for South African Airways (SAA) Cargo.
Similarly, Jan de Vegt, Air France-KLM Cargo’s area manager for Asia, said: “The growth of exports from Asia towards Africa has been a reality for the past few years. Our total air cargo traffic from China to Africa showed double-digit growth last year.”
Right now, most of the previous positive industry trends in the Asia-Africa air cargo market are predictably being negatively impacted by the global economic recession.
“As far as infrastructure projects are concerned, we think there will still be traffic growth,” said Vegt. “All other commodities will probably more or less follow the trends of the rest of the world.”
Kusmin delivered a similar assessment: “With the global economic downturn, Asia-Africa traffic flows have somewhat declined over the past few months and we expect this trend to continue for the remainder of this year.”
Longer term, though, carriers claim to be confident that the westbound sector of the Asia-Africa air cargo market, in particular, will continue to offer good prospects, particularly if the recent greater political stability seen in many parts of the latter region continues.
According to Kusmin, Asia-Africa air cargo traffic has to date mainly comprised consumer products and manufactured goods such as mobile phones, electronics, auto parts and sporting goods. She also confirmed that Chinese investment in parts of Africa had generated more project-type air cargo such as telecoms equipment.
Auriel Newman, SAA Cargo’s executive manager, key accounts and customer services, pointed out that SAA currently offered passenger service bellyhold cargo capacity into South Africa from three points in the Asia- Pacific region _ Hong Kong, Mumbai and Perth. In Africa, she added, SAA served around 20 points in the south, east and west of the continent. SAA Cargo additionally operates South African domestic and southern Africa regional freighter services, mainly with B737Fs.
Demand for air cargo capacity between China and Africa has also opened up opportunities for some Middle East-based carriers to exploit the geographical location of their home hubs and win transhipment traffic in that market.
Peter Sedgley, senior vice-president, cargo commercial operations, for Dubai-based Emirates SkyCargo, said that potential had been further boosted by the tendency for Chinese airlines to operate direct to Europe by over-flying Russia “which means Emirates is more attractive to use for Africa and Middle East distribution of China-originating traffic”.
He pointed out that in China, Emirates currently operated B747-400 freighter flights ex-Hong Kong and Shanghai into Dubai, together with bellyhold cargo capacity from Hong Kong, Shanghai, Beijing and Guangzhou.
In Africa, the Middle East airline operated a weekly freighter service from Dubai into Lagos, Nigeria; scheduled freighter flights into Lilongwe, Malawi in conjunction with Air Malawi; and charter flights to Eldoret, Kenya. Other major African points served with bellyhold cargo capacity included Lagos, Accra and Abidjan in West Africa; Nairobi, Entebbe and Dar es Salaam in East Africa; and the two key South African gateways of Johannesburg and Cape Town.
Some major European carriers have also carved out a share of the Asia-Africa air cargo market. Air France-KLM Cargo, for example, has built on the long-established connections of Air France in West Africa. The group’s Asia-West Africa traffic is therefore primarily routed via its Paris CDG hub. It also moves some cargo between Asia and East/South Africa through the group’s second home hub, Amsterdam Schiphol.
UK carrier British Airways World Cargo is developing a particular niche market between South Asia and Africa. Mat Burton, the carrier’s regional commercial manager Middle East and South Asia, explained that BA’s introduction of a five times a week B777 passenger/bellyhold cargo service direct between the Indian city of Hyderabad, an important pharmaceuticals production centre, and London Heathrow at the end of 2008 had opened up new opportunities to capture a share of the growing pharmaceuticals trade between India and Africa.
“In addition to transporting passive pharmaceutical products in tablet or raw powder form which can be moved as general freight, we can also cater for temperature-sensitive traffic with our Constant Climate service for the full through movement from India to Africa,” said Burton.
Ex-India as a whole, BA currently operates 48 passenger/bellyhold cargo services a week to London Heathrow and 10 B747-400 freighter flights as part of its Hong Kong/Shanghai-London Stansted schedule. Into Africa, the UK carrier operates over 50 passenger/bellyhold flights a week. “Cargo on flights from India arriving in the UK in the early morning can connect with evening flights the same day into Africa,” said Burton.
(cargonewsasia.com)