A 22.4% surge in May’s full freighter volumes helped Belgium’s Brussels Airport record an overall 7.4% rise in its total monthly throughput to 40,535 tons compared with the same month 2014.
A spokesperson for the Belgian hub said that May's rise in full freighter volumes was due to the arrival of several new cargo carriers, including Qatar Airways, Ethiopian Cargo and the Chinese Yangtze River Express.
“Brussels Airport is showing strong recovery in this segment. KF Aerospace (previously Kelowna) started operating at Brussels Airport in May,” said the spokesperson.
Brussels, which handled 453,000 tonnes in 2014, has enjoyed a better cargo start to 2015 than its rival European airports where average cargo volumes have decreased.
Top European cargo hub Frankfurt recorded a 1.8% decline in airfreight volumes for the first four months of 2015, while second place Paris CDG saw tonnages down 4.2% in the same period. Amsterdam's Schiphol, which has yet to report its April figures, saw a 1.8% decline in the first quarter of this year.
