Despite seeing its cargo volumes fall by 16.4% year on year in 2022 to 4.2m tonnes Hong Kong International Airport (HKIA) retained its position as the world’s busiest cargo airport in 2022. Hong Kong’s achievement is all the more...
Despite seeing its cargo volumes fall by 16.4% year on year in 2022 to 4.2m tonnes Hong Kong International Airport (HKIA) retained its position as the world’s busiest cargo airport in 2022.
Hong Kong’s achievement is all the more remarkable because it comes despite the impact of COVID restrictions on air crew, which hampered operations, particularly at flag carrier Cathay Pacific, which uses Hong Kong as its home hub.
The restrictions resulted in the carrier having to massively reduce its freighter operations in the opening months of the year. However, other airports also suffered from slower demand as volumes settled down after the surge in demand in 2021.
China finally lifted restrictions on air travel in January and since then there has been a massive increase in long-haul passenger services, with associated belly-hold capacity for cargo.
China-Heathrow flights have increased ten-fold, from five to 54 since the end of 2022 and more carriers are planning to increase their Heathrow frequencies in the coming months.
Manchester Airport has announced a return to pre-pandemic frequencies of services from Chinese carrier, Hainan Airlines (four a week) and despite the massive increases in belly-hold freight capacity that all these passenger services are bringing to the market, airlines are continuing to invest in full-freighter aircraft.
Bournemouth Airport announced last week that it will handle three A340 freighters a week from China, while daily cargo flights are also being launched into East Midlands and the Belgian regional airport, Liege, will handle regular scheduled flights to China’s Nancheng Changbei Airport, three to four times a week on a 747-400F.
It is 13 years since we opened our Hong Kong office and, as we’ve expanded our presence in the city and across Asia, it has been great to see the airport dominate the cargo scene ever since.
For valuable, special and time-sensitive cargoes there has never been a better time to use air freight, with extremely competitive rates and really interesting service and route combinations.
We have solutions for every critical shipment, please EMAIL Lewis Atkinson for insights and advice.The post Hong Kong is still the world’s busiest cargo airport appeared first on Norman Global Logistics.
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