Europe’s four busiest freight airports have seen falls of at least two per cent while the region as a whole saw growth of 0.5 per cent, according to Airports Council International (ACI) Europe.
Frankfurt Airport, Europe’s busiest freight airport, saw volumes fall by 2.3 per cent year-on-year in July to 168,267 tonnes, while second place Paris Charles de Gaulle Airport saw a drop of 6.3 per cent to 155,100 tonnes.
Amsterdam Airport Schiphol, the third busiest freight airport fell by 2.1 per cent to 133,764 tonnes while Europe’s fourth biggest, Heathrow Airport, dropped by 5.4 per cent to 121,239 tonnes. Istanbul Ataturk Airport was the only one in the top five to see an increase in July, rising by 14.6 per cent to 64,011 tonnes.
ACI Europe says: “Freight traffic across the European airport network reported tepid growth of 0.5 per cent.”
The year-to-date (YTD) figures were also 0.5 per cent above 2014 but among the top five, Heathrow and Istanbul recorded increases of one per cent to 863,035 tonnes and 6.4 per cent to 436,429 tonnes.
Frankfurt saw a fall of 2.3 per cent to 1.1 million tonnes, Paris was down by 4.9 per cent to one million tonnes and Amsterdam declined by 2.1 per cent to 918,331 tonnes.
One noticeable trend is decline of Russian airports. Moscow’s Sheremetyevo International Airport has seen freight volumes fall by 8.8 per cent YTD to 83,680 tonnes and the city’s Domodedovo International Airport declined by 20 per cent to 71,464 tonnes.
Ostrava Airport in the Czech Republic saw the largest YTD increase, of 469 per cent to 1,303 tonnes. Bourgas Airport in Bulgaria saw the next largest YTD increase, up 101.4 per cent to 6,214 tonnes. Trabzon Airport in Turkey saw the largest YTD fall, down by 83.2 per cent to 1,262 tonnes.
