#4: Doha and Guangzhou were the fastest growing large airports, but some North American airports also performed well
The five fastest growing airports among the top-20 list in 2018 include Doha (DOH), with annual year-over-year growth of 8.8 percent, Guangzhou (CAN), which was up 5.0 percent year-over-year, Chicago (ORD) up 3.6 percent, Anchorage (ANC) up 3.5 percent and Memphis (MEM) at 3.1 percent growth.
Regionally, airports in North America, Asia and the Middle East performed more strongly than airports in Europe. All six North American airports on ranked on the list experienced growth, and although one of the two Middle Eastern airports – Dubai (DXB) – saw a decline in cargo volumes, it was only down slightly (-0.5%) and likely due to shifts in carriers’ cargo operations to the Dubai’s second airport, Dubai World Central (DWC).
A majority of Asian airports ranked in the preliminary top 20 cargo airport list also saw growth, while decline at some airports, including Tokyo Narita (NRT) and Shanghai Pudong ( PVG), are also likely due to similar shifts in cargo to other regional airports as discussed in the next section.