Fast growth in ecommerce demand supports air freight business, helping to increase profitability of some major airlines despite global trade tensions, Reuters reports.

According to International Air Transport Association, air cargo demand will grow this year by 4%.

The beneficiaries in this situation include Cathay Pacific Airways (Hong Kong), Emirates (Dubai), Lufthansa (Germany) and Korean Air Lines.

Development of ecommerce also supports growth of such delivery services as UPS and FedEx.

Despite trade tensions rise, especially between US, China and Europe, sector will grow, as more and more people are making purchases online. Carriers itself describe sector’s perspective as highly favorable in many years.

Air cargo growth in 2017 was 9,7%.

Boeing increased production of mid-sized models 767 in average to 3 per month by 2020 from 2,5 now due to higher demand for its freighter version. Boeing also won new orders for freight models 747 and 777 from UPS, Lufthansa, ANA Holdings and Qatar Airways.