Hong Kong International Airport (HKIA) recorded strong growth in cargo traffic in January, with freight throughput of 410,000 tonnes representing a 9.9% year-on-year increase over the same month of 2017.
Transhipment traffic was up by 14% year-on-year, while imports rose by 10%.
Among HKIA’s most important trading regions, traffic to and from Europe and India increased most significantly during January.
On a 12-month rolling basis, HKIA handled a total of 4.97m tonnes of cargo, up by 9.7% over the preceding 12-month period.
A total of 4,268 cargo flight movements were recorded in January at the airport, up 11.4% over the same month of 2017. HKIA enjoyed an increase of 5.8% in cargo flight movements over the rolling 12-month period.
This year’s week-long Chinese New Year celebrations are currently in progress. Airport Authority Hong Kong acting deputy director, service delivery, Steven Yiu said: “The airport community, as always, strives to maintain smooth operations at HKIA during the festive seasons.
“Over the Chinese New Year holiday travel peak period, airlines have scheduled 206 additional flights to cope with the demand, with the most popular destinations being Sapporo, Osaka and Tianjin.
“Operations were smooth during the first few days of the Chinese New Year holiday period,” he added.
HKIA handled more than 5m tonnes of cargo and airmail in 2017, the first time an airport has reached this level of throughput.
The airport saw air cargo throughput increase by 9.2% year-on-year to reach 4.9m tonnes, while mail volumes hit 112,000 tonnes.
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