China’s airfreight industry has been suffering since the onset of the global financial crisis in 2008, although it showed some signs of improvement in demand during the first eight months of the year. Liu Jian, Manager of the Cargo Business Department at the Dalian branch of China Southern Airlines, recently visited some cities between Dalian, Liaoning province, and Guangzhou, Guangdong province, to look for more transfer points for his company’s cargo flights. “Connecting flights can take more goods, as each route will be shorter, meaning that less fuel has to be carried,” Liu said. China Southern Airlines, which transports 70% of the seafood originating in Dalian, carried only 4,259 tons of seafood in the first half of the year, 1,000 tons less than in the same period of 2012. “The lost income from the 1,000 tons of seafood possibly represents 5% of the branch’s total cargo income in the whole year,” said Liu. The limited capacity of cargo planes is one of the reasons for the reduction, he added, and having more connecting flights could be a solution. Due to the economic growth slowdown, Chinese airlines’ income from cargo declined, although their freight volumes still went up slightly. Air China yield per ton-kilometer decreased 7.6% to CNY1.58 during the period compared with the first half of 2012, while its load factor still increased 0.38 percentage point year-on-year to 57.26%. China Southern Airlines also had the same problem. In the first half of 2013, it posted CNY2.93 billion in revenue from its cargo and mail business, down 6% year-on-year, while its cargo and mail volume increased 2.3% year-on-year, but the yield per ton-kilometer decreased 8.1% year-on-year. “The cargo demand is still there, but the price is going down significantly,” said Leif Nilsson, Regional General Manager for the Asia Pacific region of Scandinavian Airlines (SAS). “I’m very pessimistic about the airfreight market this year, and I think the market will not recover in the short term,” said Zou Jianjun, Professor at the Civil Aviation Management Institute of China, the China Daily reports.