Source: Schiphol Cargo
Amsterdam Airport Schiphol, Europe’s fourth-largest airfreight hub, handled a total of 1.5 million tonnes of cargo in 2024, up by 8.2 percent on 2023.
According to Schiphol Cargo, air cargo traffic growth was driven by a surge in e-commerce and various global geopolitical developments and ocean shipping restrictions.
Electronics, machinery and spare parts, perishables, clothing, e-commerce goods and pharmaceuticals are some of the largest components of the freight mix when measured by volume.
Full-freighters carried 57 percent of the total traffic, 43 percent was carried in the bellyholds of passenger aircraft. There was a shift towards a higher proportion of belly freight (up from 39 percent in 2023) and this trend is predicted by Schiphol Cargo to continue in the coming years.
With a small decrease in the number of full-freighter flights, the higher volumes carried by the aircraft led to a 1 percent average year-on-year increase in full-freighter tonnages.
Belly freight saw a notable 19.8 percent increase, however, driven by a higher number of flights carrying belly cargo, as passenger services continued their post-Covid recovery.
All regions experienced strong growth except for Latin America, which saw a decline, partly due to the reallocation of routes to and from Asia driven by e-commerce demand.
There was growth in both inbound and outbound volumes.
Inbound tonnage grew by 7.8 percent, stimulated by strong demand from regions including India, the Far East (China, Japan and Korea), Africa (Kenya and South Africa), and the US.
Outbound tonnage saw an 8.8 percent increase, primarily driven by demand from the US.
There was also significant growth in volumes from the Middle East, Africa and Europe.
WFS acquires Menzies World Cargo (Amsterdam)
In other news from Schiphol from earlier this year, Worldwide Flight Services (WFS) Holland completed its acquisition of Menzies World Cargo (Amsterdam) to increase its warehouse capacity to more than 50,000 sq m at Schiphol.
The deal for the purchase of Menzies World Cargo (Amsterdam), part of Menzies Aviation’s general cargo handling operations at Schiphol, was signed in August last year and closed on January 31 this year.
At the time the acquisition deal was announced, SATS-owned WFS said that its operation at Schiphol was close to capacity.
WFS now serves over 120 airline and freight forwarder customers at Schiphol and the additional capacity provided by the takeover will help the ground handler manage further business growth.
