Europe Air Cargo Market Forecast to 2028

The Europe air cargo market is expected to grow from US$ 30.27 billion in 2022 to US$ 43.29 billion by 2028; it is estimated to grow at a CAGR of 6.1% from 2022 to 2028.

With the growing e-commerce sector and increasing demand for quicker deliveries, companies prefer express air cargo services. As a result, air cargo vendors are highly focused on gaining an edge over their competitors by offering additional value-added services. The value-added features include ensuring faster availability for cargo handling and related services at destination airports, flexible routing and schedules, shorter cut-off times than standard freight at airports, last-minute capacity access, accelerated handling, etc. The air cargo market for the express segment is expected to witness high year-on-year growth during the forecast period. Moreover, the demand for express services is mainly driven by the emergence of express deliveries of cargo categories such as pharmaceuticals, human remains, electronics, machinery parts, perishable products, and airmail.

Regular services are suitable for cost-sensitive customers that are less bothered about flexibility and delivery time. These services are opted for exporting goods such as electronic products and automotive. Vendors offer regular services at competitive prices, with features such as real-time tracking and early access at airports. The Europe air cargo market for regular services is expected to witness significant growth during the forecast period due to the escalating trade of electronic goods. Regular freight transport consists of most of the global air cargo service providers, including all goods shipped by air except mail products. According to data published in Boeing report 2020, the regular freight services consist of 81% of the global revenue, cargo tonne-kilometres and they are integral to the global supply chain. Further, carriers specializing in regular freight contribute 56% of revenue in the overall air cargo industry.

COVID-19 Pandemic Impact on Air Cargo Market

In FY 2020, despite the COVID-19 pandemic, the demand for air cargo in Europe has been driven by large transportation of medical and pharmaceutical products along with COVID-19 vaccines across different Asian countries. For instance, in 2020, Germany Airline’s cargo team was chosen to transport the Moderna and AstraZeneca vaccines from Luxembourg, Amsterdam, Bangkok, Memphis, and other locations back to Taiwan. Furthermore, in 2020, the Chinese Airlines network was also used to transport vaccines to other countries. Such operations increased the demand for air cargo services in Europe during the COVID-19 pandemic of FY 2020. Additionally, in 2021, several air cargo vendors partnered with different vaccine manufacturing companies to transfer, supply, and distribute the vaccines to other countries after the development of vaccines in 2021. For instance, in 2021, DHL Global Forwarding UK and ANA partnered for the delivery of Pfizer's COVID-19 vaccine across cities in the UK. Such developments have driven the air cargo market in Europe in the FY 2020-2021.

The ongoing war/conflict between Russia and Ukraine has been negatively impacting the European cargo capacity. As Russia is the second largest country in Europe, the invasion of Russia in Ukraine has led to airspace and landing restrictions for many Russian aircraft across different countries of Europe. For instance, the ban on overflight operations across Russian airspace territory has adversely affected the cargo shipments across international air transport operations. For instance, after the invasion of the Russian Military in Ukraine on February 2022, several countries such as the UK, Germany, Lithuania, Estonia, Slovenia, Romania, Poland, Czech Republic, and Latvia have shut down their national airspace for Russian aircraft fleet. Also, Russia banned its national airspace for ~36 countries (including all 27 members of European Union, Germany, Canada, and US) aircraft fleets. This has led to a reduction in the number of cargo and passenger aircraft operations across these European countries and reduced many cargo operations of several cargo airlines.

Moreover, the air cargo operations between Asia Pacific and Europe have been negatively impacted due to flight cancellations and route diversions (due to the ceasing of Russian national airspace) that have also led to delays in cargo deliveries across these regions. The majority of the global cargo hubs have also witnessed major disruptions along with capacity reductions & flight rotations that have led to increased cargo rates across the world. Such factors have impacted negatively in the Europe air cargo market during the FY 2020.

In addition, the defense industry in Russia (including manufacturing, supply chain, and services) experienced a serious challenge in early 2022, as the country invaded Ukraine to capture all the military bases. This invasion has led many western countries (US, Canada, European Union, and NATO countries) to impose sanctions on Russia, curtailing the supply chain in the country. These sanctions have severely affected Russia’s defense industry, which has disrupted the European supply chain, thereby hampering the Europe air cargo market growth across the region.

A few of the key Europe air cargo market players that are profiled in the market study include Turkish Cargo, DHL International, Air France KLM Martinair Cargo, United Parcel Services Inc, and FedEx Corporation. These air cargo market players are constantly working with end users to understand their specific air cargo demands and provide them reliable air cargo solutions & services to remain competitive in the market and drive the Europe air cargo market growth.

The overall Europe air cargo market size has been derived using both primary and secondary sources. To begin the research process, exhaustive secondary research has been conducted using internal and external sources to obtain qualitative and quantitative information related to the air cargo market. The process also serves the purpose of obtaining an overview and forecast of the Europe air cargo market size with respect to all air cargo market segments. Also, multiple primary interviews have been conducted with industry participants to validate the data and gain more analytical insights. The participants typically involved in this process include VPs, business development managers, intelligence managers, national sales managers, and external consultants—such as valuation experts, research analysts, and key opinion leaders—specializing in the Europe air cargo market.