Emirates Sky Cargo announced record revenue of US $2.4 billion last year, which was 27.9% up on 2009, thanks to a “worldwide rebound” in cargo movement.
This helped Emirates Group to record revenues of $15.6 billion for 2010, according to press statement from 10th of May.
However, speaking at the Transport Logistic event in Munich, Emirates SkyCargo’s Divisional Senior VP for Cargo, Ram Menen said the first half of 2010 had been stronger than the second.
High cost of petrol had increased transport costs, and many industrialists delayed shipments, while waiting for the price of fuel to come down.
Inventories had been low and a lot of the growth had been down to re-stocking. Once warehouses had return to normal volumes, orders had stopped coming in and volume growth had slowed.
Shippers had also avoided placing orders at Far Eastern factories during the second-half of 2010, because the US dollar had weakened, making goods more expensive for western consumers.
So far this year, the trend appeared to be repeating itself, leading Emirates to downgrade its growth prediction for the industry in 2011 from 8-10% to 4-6%.
Ram Menen explained that cargo growth levels had suffered from the political instability in the Middle East and North Africa, and supply chains were affected by the Japanese twin disaster, which had resulted in car factories in Europe working short-time due to disruptions in component supplies.
However, situation is expected to improve as the year progresses.
Fuel prices had fallen over the past couple of weeks and Japanese manufacturers were working hard to get production back to previous levels.
The weakening of volume growth over the past few months very much likely depleted inventories, which could lead to another phase of re-stocking.
