The 2021 indicator

The 2021 International Airfreight Indicator follows on from the 2019 analysis and continues to provide a granular understanding of Australia’s airfreight flows and highlights key trends, challenges and opportunities for the supply chain. By transparently measuring the composition of these trade flows, this analysis provides supply chain participants – airlines, airports and Australians more broadly – access to the information and insights needed to optimise the way we use our infrastructure and maximise our economic opportunities. This is especially critical given the changing aviation and supply chain environment.

This analysis describes airfreight by both the value of goods transported and also by weight. The weight of goods transported provides an indication of the transportation task and infrastructure requirements, while the value of goods transported highlights the economic contribution of the supply chain.

The primary source of data used in this analysis is unpublished import and export statistics from the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS). This dataset details airfreight commodity movements by direction of trade, units of trade in both value and volume of goods, and by commodity categories from January 2016 to December 2020. All monetary values described in this analysis are presented in nominal terms. A more detailed description of the dataset is provided in Appendix A.