There were few changes to the latest list of the world's top 25 busiest air cargo carriers with the top five spots staying identical to a year earlier. Once more Federal Express top the list followed by Emirates and UPS, with the bulk of the top 15 made up from Asian and Middle Eastern carriers.
The annual study is compiled from the IATA World Air Transport Statistics. Fedex wase able to maintain top spot despite a fall of 1.4% over the year. What is remarkable about the data is that despite a somewhat sluggish year overall for air freight, no less than eleven of the top fifteen carriers saw growth in demand when compared with 2014. Collectively the top 25 airlines experienced a 4.3% increase in demand year-over-year.
Consistency in demand certainly helped both Fedex and UPS retain their respective global ranking with variances of less than two percent compared with results from the prior year.
In terms of the largest growth in percentage terms year-over-year some of the biggest successes included Emirates (+8.2%), Qatar Airways (+27.7%), Air China (+16.5%) and Polar Air Cargo (+32.8%). Among US passenger airlines it was American Airlines (+15.0%) that demonstrated the strongest growth which placed them 24th worldwide in scheduled freight tonne-km. Delta Airlines dropped out of the global top 25 for Air Freight.
All data sourced from IATA and graphs compiled by AirCargoNews.net