Frankfurt Airport, Germany’s biggest and busiest airfreight gateway, saw its cargo throughput (including both airfreight and air mail) rise by 3.2 percent year-on-year to reach 184,679 tonnes in March 2025.
That figure is down 8.8 percent on the pre-Covid total for March 2019, however.
The one-day strike by the Verdi trade union is said by airport operator Fraport to have hampered growth in cargo volumes, which would have been even higher when taking into account the base-year effect from various strike days in 2024.
At 90,800 tonnes (up by 9.1 percent year-on-year), unloadings were the primary growth driver, with loadings only increasing by 0.8 percent to approximately 90,200 tonnes.
The trend for shifting freighter capacity from US to China routes continued in March. Freighter aircraft tonnages involving North America fell heavily by 15.8 percent to around 15,600 tonnes, while there was a 39.9 percent increase to around 31,000 tonnes for freighter aircraft volumes involving China.
Cargo carried on passenger flights (belly loads) saw a moderate increase of 1.7 percent year-on-year to around 72,900 tonnes. The opposite trend to that seen with freighter aircraft continued: while bellyhold load volumes involving the USA increased by 13.3 percent to reach some 21,500 tonnes, China traffic remained static.
Overall, traffic with China was the main growth driver, with an increase of 30.2 percent, while traffic with the USA experienced a drop of 1.1 percent.
Traffic via Middle Eastern hubs also declined, by 3.6 percent. The background to this was attacks on container shipping in the Red Sea last year that have led to exceptionally high levels of demand at the Middle East’s sea-air hubs on the trade route linking Asia and Europe.
Latin America traffic (up by 8.5 percent) showed a positive trend, while Africa traffic saw a slowdown in growth but still a year-on-year increase of 3.4 percent. Intra-Europe traffic benefited from the strike-induced base-year effect, Fraport said, rising by 3 percent.
The number of freighter flights rose, with growth of 2 percent year-on-year to 2,164 movements. As in the previous month, capacities shifted from North America (down 27.6 percent) to the Far East (up 25.3 percent). More freighter flights were also offered to Latin America (rising by 22.1 percent year-on-year).
Over the course of the first quarter of this year, Fraport handled 485,070 tonnes of cargo, down by 0.3 percent on the same three months of 2024.
