Freight traffic up 6.5% in October at Brussels

November 22, 2016

Brussels Airport saw its cargo volumes rise year-on-year (YOY) 6.5 per cent to 46,603 tonnes in October compared to the same month last year.

Growth was driven by the full freighter segment which surged YOY by 28.8 per cent to 17,119 tonnes, mainly by Singapore Airlines Cargo, Qatar Airways Cargo and Ethiopian Airlines.

For the first time in a long while the gateway’s integrator traffic saw a slight YOY decrease of 2.4 per cent to 17,878. This it says is explained by the fact that October 2016 included five weekends and on weekends there is much less cargo transported than on weekdays.

Belly cargo has fallen YOY by 4.5 per cent compared to October last year – largely due to the departure of Jet Airways to Schiphol in March this year. The decrease was partly compensated for by a growth in volume at both Brussels Airlines and United Airlines.

Last month also saw the start of a service between Shanghai and Brussels by Hainan Airlines to boost belly tonnage.

In the first 10 months of the year the gateway has handled 399,554 tonnes, a 2.3 per cent YOY fall on the 409,164 tonnes in the same period last year.

This fall is largely due to the impact of the terrorist attacks in March and Ethiopian’s absence for a few months of the year.

Freighter traffic is up YOY 2.2 per cent for the first 10 months with integrator traffic up 0.7 per cent and all-cargo carriers up YOY 4.3 per cent while belly traffic is down YOY 13.5 per cent compared to January-October in 2015.

James Graham

James Graham is an award-winning transport media journalist with a long background in the commercial freight sector, including commercial aviation and the aviation supply chain. He was the initial Air Cargo Week journalist and retuned later for a stint as editor. He continues his association as editor of the monthly supplements. He has reported for the newspaper from global locations as well as the UK.