Mid-size hubs find room to grow
Meanwhile, some of the medium-sized airports, such as Germany’s Leipzig/Halle Airport, reported July cargo volumes up 7.7 percent, y-o-y, to a record 84,000 tonnes for the month – the third-consecutive month the airport has set a record. Leipzig is DHL’s main European hub, and also home of the Lufthansa/DHL joint-venture carrier AeroLogic, and the second-busiest cargo airport in Germany.
At Munich Airport, Markus Heinelt, director of traffic development, cargo, said the facility saw an 11.6 percent gain in cargo tonnage for the first half of 2015, compared with 2014 – also a new six-month record. Part of the reason, he said, is the changing nature of Munich’s role as a cargo hub. “Some airlines substantially bumped up the number of flights on existing long-haul routes and also added new ones. The resulting gains in cargo capacity – specifically belly capacity – have been very effectively marketed in Munich.”
Munich, Heinelt said, has the strongest economy in Germany, with a growing export market and robust e-commerce activity, which has led UPS, DHL, FedEx and TNT to expand their Munich-area activities. However, the segment posting the most robust gains in Munich – “contrary to all prevailing trends,” he added – is general cargo freighter traffic, which has increased by 33 percent over the last two years since the launch of scheduled service by Cargolux. This was later followed by the rapid expansion of AirBridgeCargo in Munich, and more recently by five weekly flights by Yangtze River Express. “We are experiencing a veritable boom in this area,” he said.
To the northwest, Steven Polmans, head of cargo sales and marketing for the Brussels Airport Co., said that Brussels Airport saw a 10.4 percent increase in total cargo traffic in the first eight months of 2015. He cites “several new full-cargo carriers” – including Ethiopian Airways, Qatar Cargo, Yangtze River Express and KF Aerospace – and new routes that have been started over the last 12 months, serving markets in the U.S., Canada, Africa, China and the Middle East. “These new routes and carriers have not been cannibalising any of the existing routes,” he said. “Also, the volumes transported by our integrator, DHL, remained strong and showed continuous growth. This is very encouraging, taking into account the general trend we see at most airports and in Europe in general.”