Brussels Airport reports 6.9 percent increase in cargo traffic in H1 2018

July 12, 2018: Major European gateway has seen 6.9 percent increase in cargo traffic during the first half of 2018 as compared to the first six months of 2017.

The airport cites healthy increase in the volume of belly cargo and in trucked air cargo as the factors for the rise in cargo traffic in the first semester.

The fall in full-cargo volume (-7.9 percent) is to be attributed to some of the full cargo air carriers leaving or withdrawing because of the stricter noise restrictions imposed by the Brussels Capital Region at the start of 2017,” informs Brussels Airport through a statement on its website.

This fall is offset in the first semester of 2018 by a strong rise in belly cargo (+18.4 percent) and in trucked air cargo (+22.8 percent),” adds the airport.

Releasing monthly traffic results, the airport informed that it has seen a strong 14.6 percent increase in June 2018 when compared to June 2017, courtesy of the strong growth in the full cargo segment (+14.3 percent) and in the volume of belly cargo carried by commercial flights (+24.3 percent), with new routes and new flights taken into operation by Hainan, Emirates and Cathay Pacific. Air cargo went up by (+9.9 percent).

Exports are continuing to grow (+11 percent), half of which goes to Asia. But more than anything else, it is imports (+24 percent), largely hailing from Africa, North America and Asia, that are making a big forward leap.

The amount of trucked air cargo showed a spectacular 29 percent boom compared against the same month of last year. All of which means that we are carrying more goods to the airports of Amsterdam, Frankfurt, Luxembourg and Paris than we load onto passenger flights in Brussels. This also acts to demonstrate the quality and strength of the logistical cargo platform but also the need for added capacity to meet this demand.