Airfreight impact advisory as COVID-19 cases surge

Pudong Airport is one of Shanghai’s two international airports and a major aviation hub of East Asia.

Pudong’s other terminal, the China Eastern Cargo Terminal, is still operating albeit with significantly reduced manpower leading to cargo planes departing without being fully loaded.

This follows recent news from Shanghai International Airport Services Co. advising of limited ground handling services across cargo terminals due to drastically reduced staff numbers as a result of COVID-19 cases and related newly implemented strict regulations, seeing many flights leave Shanghai without having been fully loaded or unloaded. 

Across China, efforts to curb the growing number of Covid-19 cases have resulted in significantly reduced staff and crew, limiting services at cargo airports and seeing between 33% - 66% of the daily total of flights out of China cancelled. (source: Freightwaves) The severe reduction of flights out of China coupled with some China airports only accepting a reduced number of import cargo will impact space and equipment availability with the related increase in air freight rates expected to be significant over the coming weeks. 

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