Slower global economic growth had a major impact on the development of the air freight market in 2013. According to IATA, the global air freight market expanded by only 1%, to 49.8 million tonnes. Freight revenues contracted by USD 3 billion to USD 61 billion. IATA expects freight demand to grow by 4% in 2014 and revenues to increase by 3% to USD 63 billion.
Russian airlines held about 2% of the global freight market in 2013, transporting about 1 million tonnes or 1.3% more than in 2012. However, their freight turnover decreased by 1.3% y-o-y in 2013 to 5 billion tonne-kilometers.
The carriage of freight by Russian airlines on international routes rose slightly in 2013 to about 684,000 thousand tonnes, representing 68% of all freight carried by Russian airlines. Freight volumes on domestic routes remained almost unchanged at about 317,000 tonnes.
AirBridgeCargo (a part of Volga-Dnepr) remained the biggest Russian air freight carrier in 2013, with JSC Aeroflot in second place. The five biggest Russian freight carriers accounted for 76.2% of total volumes last year.
Aeroflot revised its strategy for freight business in 2013, deciding to focus on belly cargo on regular passenger flights.