With the Chinese market floundering of late, the overall cargo tonnage that passed through Amsterdam Schiphol dipped in the first half of 2015, compared to the same time in 2014, although there were some bright spots from elsewhere around the world.
The airport handled 784,567 tonnes of cargo in the first half of 2015, down 2.1 percent, year-over-year. Asia traffic was down 3.8 percent, y-o-y, at 293,293 tonnes and Europe plummeted by 16.2 percent to 64,198 tonnes. Middle East traffic was also down 3.4 percent at 103,243 tonnes, and Africa dipped slightly by 0.1 percent to 88,860 tonnes.
“The figures are also better than they might appear, as they are compared against a very strong first half of 2014, when we experienced a growth of 7.2 percent. The tonnages for 2015 are actually still 6.5 percent up on 2013,” said Jonas van Stekelenburg, the new director of cargo at Schiphol.
The western hemisphere also gave the Dutch hub some strong gains. North American traffic, for instance, was up 4.7 percent, y-o-y, to 150,494 tonnes, while Latin America was even stronger, up 4.8 percent to 84,482 tonnes. Worth noting is that freighter movements were up 1.4 percent to 8,218. Schiphol’s best month in the first half was March, with a total of 139,597 tonnes handled.