Ontario International Airport (ONT) experienced double-digit cargo growth in 10 different months in 2020 - and this trend has continued into January this year.
In January 2021, air cargo volumes increased by 15.6% year on year to 70,500 tonnes. Meanwhile, the volume of mail shipments more than doubled to 3,225 tonnes.
The hub said this growth in cargo demand happened because "Southern Californians continued to rely heavily on e-commerce to keep their households and businesses supplied".
Additionally, in November last year, FedEx completed its $100m investment into facilities at ONT. The 25,000 sq ft complex has a sorting facility capable of handling 12,000 packages per hour, as well as nine widebody aircraft gates, 14 feeder aircraft gates and 18 truck docks.
Mark Thorpe, chief executive officer of the Ontario International Airport Authority, commented: "Cargo continued to be a source of strength in January like it was for all of 2020. Freight shippers continued to show great confidence in our ability to provide the infrastructure and facilities they needed to meet increasing demands on the e-commerce supply chain."
Impacted by the coronavirus pandemic, passenger traffic at the hub in January 2021 was 66% lower than a year earlier.
