Cargo has been the saving grace of the aviation industry which has been brought to its knees by Covid-19.Before the global pandemic cargo contributed a marginal 10 to 15% to airline revenues – a figure that has skyrocketed to around 30 to 35%. In some cases it now even represents up to 40% of some airlines’ revenue. According to Sanjeev Gadhia, CEO of Astral Aviation, air cargo demand is continuing to surge.“ Cargo’s financial contribution will be a lifeline for most passenger airlines,” he said, predicting that cargo would take priority in airlines’ strategy, f leet acquisition and network development. It will also need to be represented at board level.Gadhia said airports would also need to reconsider the role of cargo in airline operations. “Airports are going to have to redefine the critical routes for cargo and expand infrastructure – especially for cold-room andexpress cargo – to meet the demand for vaccines and e-commerce cargo.”According to Gadhia, cargo could rescue any airline provided that the organisation took the initiative to treat it as a core business and give it priority. He said whereas passenger demand remained uncertain, cargo was booming.Murial Sadh, chief business development officer, BidAir Cargo, agreed, saying there was a consistent increase in volumes and demand was higher than ever before.According to the International Air Transport Association (Iata), the air cargo sector has fully recovered and is performing at pre-Covid levels. The latest Iata figures show demand is up by 4.4%.Sadh said capacity, however, remained a challenge, despite an uptake in freighter operations. “During the past 18 months freight forwarders that usually would have made use of the belly space on a passenger line had no other option but to use freighter services to ensure connectivity.”But, she said, while demand for airfreight had increased, the industry had also in recent months lost a sizeable amount of cargo to road transport – a move that was directly attributed to the costs involved in f lying cargo.“The strong global economic rebounds, however, are positive drivers for air cargo. Having said that, the capacity crunch will remain as levels are still 14% down on 2019 figures. Belly space will remain at a premium,” she said. According to former Comair CEO Wrenelle Stander, the impact of 2020 would be felt by African airlines for some time. She described it as a year like no other for the aviation industry. “The impact of Covid was immense. It resulted in financial losses, airline failures, unemployment and limited global connectivity. African connectivity was decimated and suffered a 93% decline.”With many African airlines having to either file for bankruptcy or go into business rescue, the environment remains uncertain and cost-cutting endeavours continue to be the order of the day.“What is certain is that the impact of the pandemic is far from over,” said Stander. “Right now, African airlines have two priorities, and those are short-term survival and figuring out how to respond to the changing Covid landscape. The consequences of this pandemic have been significant, and the result has been a permanent change to the aviation industry.”
