The CEO of air cargo carrier Atlas Air said Tuesday he expects more capacity reductions in air freight in the wake of market declines.

"There's still an imbalance there (between traffic and capacity) and that puts pressure" on rates, William Flynn said in an interview at the Paris Air Show. "It's my belief that more capacity is going to come out."

"What you're going to see continue to come out would be the older, less-efficient capacity," he added.

Thirty-five percent of the value of goods traded internationally is shipped via cargo, according to the International Air Transport Association.

Since December 2008, monthly international cargo volumes have stabilized, albeit at levels 20 percent lower than year-earlier levels, IATA has said.

Flynn said Atlas had retired 11 of its 17 older 747-200 aircraft this year, and he did not rule out removing more from service.

"Right now our aircraft are well-utilized," Flynn said. But "if we see demand in some of our markets fall even further, we'll retire additional 747-200 units," Flynn said.

He said a few more months would likely pass before there could be indications that the market has bottomed, and added consumer confidence was at least one gauge to watch.

"A lot of air freight is really high-value consumer products," Flynn said. "So we'll certainly want to look at consumer confidence as one leading indicator of what may happen."