Budapest Airport has achieved its aim of handling over 100,000 tonnes of cargo in a year, passing the important milestone at the end of November.
Ferenc Liszt Airport, which serves the Hungarian capital, says the strong growth has not come from one particular airline or segment, as belly cargo is rising along with integrators and cargo carriers.
It says imports and exports have been balanced until last year when the latter started growing faster, and the annual growth rate of cargo has grown at 21.5 per cent when including road cargo.
Budapest Airport property director, Rene Droese says: “The needs of increasingly robust cargo traffic will also be catered for by the two major logistics bases currently under construction next to Terminal 1 for DHL Express and TNT.”
“Simultaneously, we started preparations of the development of a brand new air cargo center called Cargo City in the area next to Terminal 2, since it is expected that additional and more modern cargo handling capacities will be required in Budapest within a short time.”
It says major Chinese companies are distributing their goods via Budapest as it is well placed, with 20 European countries within a 1,000-kilometre radius. Budapest says it has strong transport links to important commercial distribution destinations via hubs including Luxembourg, Doha, Dubai and Istanbul.