The late timing of the Chinese New Year (Feb. 19) and the bottlenecks from the West Coast port crisis in the United States may have played havoc with the last two months’ worth of airfreight data, skewing numbers to unnaturally high and low traffic figures in most regions of the world. But the most recent data from February, released by the Association of Asia Pacific Airlines (AAPA), were unambiguously positive, especially when viewed along with figures from the previous month.

International air cargo demand for Asia-Pacific carriers, measured in freight tonne kilometers (FTK), rose by a mighty 20.5 percent in February, compared to the same month from last year. The growth rate was significantly higher than the year-over-year capacity growth of 12.6 percent, leading to a 4.2 percentage-point rise in freight load factor, to 65.2 percent.

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