The air cargo market has recovered rapidly, and experts say it is still necessary to strengthen departmental coordination and optimize resource allocation

Forwarded from Jiuzhou Logistics Network 2022-11-04

A cargo plane of Shandong Airlines loaded with 17 tons of hairy crabs, express and e-commerce goods recently took off from Lianshui Airport in Huai'an to Chengdu Shuangliu International Airport. A few hours later, these hairy crabs were put on the local people's table.

In China, about 200 cargo planes of airlines travel through the air every day. In the future, new cargo aircraft or "passenger to cargo" aircraft will continue to join the air cargo fleet.
"As an important channel connecting production and consumption, the aviation logistics industry is of great significance in building a modern logistics system, promoting the formation of a strong domestic market, deeply participating in international division of labor and cooperation, serving the implementation of major national strategies, and ensuring the stability of the international supply chain." At the "media sharing meeting on cargo aircraft products and cargo market" held on October 28, Zhong Shan, chief economist of the Institute of Transport of the Chinese Academy of Civil Aviation Science and Technology, said.
At the same time, she said that in view of the weak service capacity of the main body of the air cargo industry and the insufficient basic support capacity, it is necessary to optimize resource allocation, strengthen departmental coordination, and build a modern air logistics governance system with strong innovation, high openness and good inclusiveness.
Rapid market recovery
According to the First Financial reporter, the domestic air cargo market has recovered rapidly recently. According to the national logistics smooth operation on October 26 released by the Ministry of Transport, civil aviation guaranteed 837 cargo flights (including 617 international cargo flights and 220 domestic cargo flights), up 5.2% month on month.
Public data from many places also shows that since the second half of this year, the air cargo market has recovered significantly.
Take Shanghai Pudong International Airport as an example. In September this year, the cargo throughput of overseas routes reached 261800 tons, an increase of more than 11% year on year. In the third quarter of this year, the number of inbound and outbound cargo and mail flights at Pudong Airport reached 17,800, an increase of 34.8% month on month and 6.6% year on year.
From January to July this year, Hangzhou Xiaoshan Airport completed an air cargo throughput of 478000 tons, including 78300 tons of international and Hong Kong, Macao and Taiwan air cargo; In July, the cargo and mail throughput of Nantong Airport on international routes hit a record high, with the cross-border e-commerce export volume soaring by 104.6% year on year.
"In 2020, affected by the epidemic situation, China's air cargo and mail transport volume will decline. In accelerating the construction of a new development pattern with domestic circulation as the main body, the air cargo and mail transport volume will gradually recover. Compared with 2019, there will be a positive growth in 2021." Zhong Shan introduced that, at the beginning of 2022, the air cargo and mail transport volume was affected by the international situation, and declined compared with the same period of 2019, but since April, the transport volume has shown a growth trend.
Statistics show that at present, the airport cargo and mail throughput of the 19 major urban agglomerations in China accounts for 98% of the total airport cargo and mail throughput of the country, of which the airport cargo and mail throughput of Beijing Tianjin Hebei, Yangtze River Delta, Guangdong Hong Kong Macao, and Chengdu Chongqing urban agglomerations accounts for 71.4%, and the air cargo and mail traffic between the four urban agglomerations accounts for 35.8% of the country.
After years of development, air cargo has formed two business models: passenger aircraft belly cargo and full cargo aircraft. Zhong Shan introduced that before the epidemic, the belly cabin transportation of passenger aircraft had always been the main force of China's air cargo transportation, and the total cargo aircraft transportation volume accounted for a relatively low proportion. In 2019, in China's air cargo and mail transport volume, the ratio of full cargo aircraft to belly cabin transport volume is 3:7, and the proportion of full cargo aircraft in the international market is higher than that in China. In 2020, domestic airlines will transport 2.223 million tons of all cargo aircraft and 1.758 million tons of belly cargo aircraft, accounting for more than half of the total cargo aircraft.
To cope with the impact of the epidemic, major airlines are trying to expand their air cargo business and increase revenue by introducing full cargo aircraft or "passenger to cargo".
According to the First Financial reporter, the above-mentioned all cargo plane of Shanhang is refitted from its own passenger plane. Shanhang plans to increase cargo aircraft capacity through self owned aircraft refitting, form a cargo aircraft fleet (at least 5) by the end of the "14th Five Year Plan", and build a passenger and cargo route network with Jinan and Qingdao as the main hub bases, facing Japan and South Korea and covering Asia.
At the media sharing meeting, Zhou Junren, the sales manager of Sichuan Airlines Logistics Co., Ltd., introduced that Sichuan Airlines Logistics had introduced three A330-200F freighters, and "the fourth A330-300P2F freighter will soon be in place". Since the launch of Sichuan Airlines cargo aircraft in November 2019, the total flight time of cargo aircraft has exceeded 25000 hours, and the total cargo and mail transport volume has exceeded 150000 tons.
Prior to this, China Eastern Airlines, Hainan Airlines, Air China International, China Southern Airlines and others have also been involved in air cargo business through the introduction of cargo planes, the establishment of cargo airlines, the split of cargo logistics and other ways.
Achieve "Four Transformations"
"According to the air cargo market forecast made by Airbus from 2022 to 2041, e-commerce business will promote the growth of express logistics at an average annual rate of 4.9%, becoming one of the most important new growth points in the air cargo market." Zhang Hanguang, senior analyst of the market department of Airbus China, said that the growth of international trade has provided strong demand for air cargo, which in turn has promoted the growth of demand in the cargo aircraft market.
"In the future, the Asia Pacific region will replace Europe as the largest regional market in global international trade, and China will undoubtedly be one of the most important markets to promote the growth of the Asia Pacific region." Zhang Hanguang said.
Su Jing, aircraft sales director of Airbus China, said that the number of cargo aircraft in service in the world would reach 3070 by 2041, of which 2440 would be delivered to the market gradually in the next 20 years to replace old models. Of the 2440 freighters, 1550 will be converted from passenger aircraft, and the other 890 will be original freighters newly manufactured.
"As far as the Chinese market is concerned, the total cargo aircraft of airlines currently accounts for only about 10% of the global total. With the growth of the market, the number of domestic cargo aircraft fleet will reach 690 by 2041, accounting for more than 20% of the global market. 630 of them will be new cargo aircraft, accounting for more than 25% of the global new cargo aircraft." Su Jing said.
However, on the whole, China's air cargo industry still has shortcomings. "Strengthening air cargo capacity is a highly concerned and urgent problem for civil aviation." In June last year, Feng Zhenglin, the former director of the Civil Aviation Administration of China, said that there was a significant gap in China's international air cargo capacity in response to the overall strategic needs of the country's economic and social development and opening up.



Zhong Shan once participated in the preparation of China's "Fourteenth Five Year Plan" for the Development of Air Logistics. She introduced that in the survey, it was found that the scale of all cargo planes of China's aviation logistics enterprises was relatively small, professional and full chain services were still lagging behind, and overseas service support was insufficient; Most airports do not pay enough attention to the investment in freight infrastructure, the design concept lags behind, the freight support capacity is not strong, and the equipment is not intelligent and automatic. In particular, the short board of specialized security for medicine, cold chain fresh food, express delivery, electronic products and other goods is prominent.
"The informatization construction of some airlines and airports is lagging behind, and their capabilities are lacking. Data interfaces, formats and information exchange standards are not unified, and information islands are serious." Zhong Shan said that during the survey, it was also found that the regulatory and standard system in line with the law of aviation logistics development had not been formed. The laws and regulations on aviation logistics safety, special cargo transport services, and new business types needed to be improved, and the standards for new technology application and multimodal transport needed to be established urgently.
Zhong Shan said that for air logistics, the first step is to achieve "four changes" in understanding, that is, from "focusing on passengers and light cargo" to "focusing on both passengers and cargo"; The transition from "field to field" to "door to door"; The transformation from a single business type to the overall ecology; The transformation from industry management to integrated governance.
She explained that it was necessary to change the previous policy orientation of focusing on supporting passenger transport and implement the development strategy of "attaching equal importance to both passenger and cargo". Due to the low cost and wide accessibility of cargo carried in the belly cabin of passenger aircraft, "the development of aviation logistics cannot simply pursue the increase in the number of all cargo aircraft", and it is necessary to coordinate the "passenger cargo relationship". At present and even in the future, the belly cabin of an aircraft is still one of the most realistic choices.
"On the surface, aviation logistics is weak in the air, but in fact, it is weak in the chain." Zhong Shan said that it is necessary to strengthen industrial coordination, support the development of new business forms, new models, new technology applications and multimodal transport of aviation logistics, and support and cultivate aviation logistics hubs and large aviation logistics enterprises with international competitiveness. We will promote in-depth cooperation between air logistics enterprises and express delivery, cross-border e-commerce, and manufacturing enterprises, and create an air cargo ecosystem with an organic integration of industrial chain, supply chain, and value chain.