PARTICIPATION OF MOSCOW CARGO REPRESENTATIVES IN THE WORLD CARGO SUMMIT 2022 CONFERENCE

30/01/2022

Representatives of Moscow Cargo, LLC took part in the international online conference World Cargo Summit 2022, held in January. The Swedish platform of Euroavia International AB once again brought together representatives of the largest airlines and airports, leading handling operators and international logistics companies, as well as other air transportation market participants.

The main topic of the discussion was the imbalance in demand in the industry and current possibilities for handling and delivering cargo. According to IATA, global air cargo transportation in 2021 was 6.9% higher than pre-pandemic levels in 2019 and 18.7% higher than in 2020, while the volume of available belly capacities decreased by 10.9% compared to 2019 as a whole and on international routes - by 12.8%. For more than 30 years (IATA has been updating these statistics since 1990), a greater increase in demand for air transportation has been recorded only once - in 2010, when it reached 20.6% against the background of the industry's recovery after the global financial crisis.

Worldwide, there is a steady demand for medical supplies, which are traditionally delivered by air. The surge in the number of new cases of COVID-19, caused by the spread of the omicron virus, led to a 20% increase in the volume of medical cargo handled by the Moscow Cargo terminal compared to 2020 and to a twofold increase in volumes in 2019. Moreover, if medicines, test systems for coronavirus and oxygen concentrators were mainly imported into Russia, then one of the notable export categories of medical cargo in 2021 was COVID-19 vaccines.

One of the main drivers of growth in global air transportation remains e-commerce, which in recent years witnessed a real boost in demand for the services of express carriers. According to Moscow Cargo, LLC for the period from 2018 to 2021. the average annual growth rate of this category of cargo amounted to 110%.

According to most experts, the results of 2021 could have been even more impressive, especially considering the difficult situation with sea and rail transportation, but the negative effect of a number of factors influenced the outcome. First of all, we are talking about the shortage of labor force, taking into account a high level of morbidity among employees. The aforementioned problem has mainly influenced the largest air hubs, which have practically no option of temporarily hiring untrained personnel due to high skill requirements and restrictions on the right to work in the controlled areas of the airport under aviation security rules.

Another acute problem was the lack of space for placing cargo in temporary storage warehouses at hub international airports, which was further aggravated by the accumulation of international transfer cargo and destabilized the operations of handling agents.

The conference platform provided the participants with the opportunity to discuss key problems not only in an open dialogue that helps to find mutual solutions to global industry problems, but also in the format of one-on-one business meetings, allowing to focus on more specific tasks.