Strong Decline in Q1 US Air Imports and Exports

AMSTERDAM, May 15 (Seabury) - US air imports and exports experienced unpresedented low quarterly growth in Q1 of 2009.

US air exports declined with 21& in q1; the month of March saw the largest decline with 23%. Especially exports back to Asia Pacific slumped in Q1; Japan, China and South Korea all saw their air imports from the US decline by 27% on average. Taiwan experienced the greatest drop: -63%, mainly caused by a severe decline in sheets of glass for the automotive industry. The exporting regions in the US that suffered most from the transpacific decline were New York, Chicago and San Francisco.

Air imports into the US were even more severely hit than US exports in Q1. This was partly caused by failing imports of laptops from the Shanghai Songjiang area in China and machinery parts from Germany. Whilst air imports declined with 30% in Q1 2009, total international capacity - measured in ATKs on passenger and freighter aircraft - into the US decreased by just 9% in the same period. This discepancy has put more pressure on carrier's load factors.