Bigger bellies?
The significance of co-loaded freight for European airports.
We’re not talking about sumptuous Christmas feasts here, but about belly-hold cargo in passenger aircraft. A study published by ‘Logistikregion Rheinland’ underlined its significance recently. Now the Omicron variant of Covid-19 has put a question against more air travel.
Long-haul routes with cargo-friendly widebody aeroplanes may not necessarily be the alpha and omega for many airports. Such business is not negligible, however; before the outbreak of Covid-19, belly-freight accounted for up to 16% of the revenue generated on long-haul routes, after all.
At Düsseldorf airport (DUS), which serves the capital of North Rhine-Westphalia, one of the economically strongest regions of Europe, the two sectors of the aviation industry are closely intertwined. The 226,000 aircraft movements counted there in 2019 lifted 25.5 million passengers and 66,000 t of cargo into the air.
Close integration or focus on B2C
The five largest providers of cargo capacities all took on belly-hold cargo – Emirates (which accounted for a local market share of 24%), Eurowings (18%), ANA and Etihad Airways (13% each) and Turkish Airlines (10%).
But since March 2020 passenger traffic has been subject to unprecedented volatility. Even this year, this unpredictability has ranged from completely discontinuing certain routes on account of border closures, to explosive growth rates to and from certain destinations, especially touristic ones, compared to the same month of last year.
At DUS, for example, this led to a sharp drop in volumes (–68% vis-à-vis 2020, to 21,000 t), from which the airport only started to recover in April. From January to October 2021 it nevertheless handled approximately 14% less cargo than in the first ten months of last year.
The structure of business at Cologne Bonn airport (CGN) is very different. Its 143,000 flights in 2019 saw it carry around 12.4 million passengers and 814,000 t of cargo. About 96% of the latter was express freight hauled by UPS (73%), FedEx Express (14%), DHL (6%) and Amazon Prime Air (3%). Even EgyptAir Cargo’s market share of 2% exceeds that of the largest passenger airlines operating at CGN.
A holistic view of air traffic
CGN is amongst the bigger winners of the outbreak of Covid-19, thanks also to the e-commerce boom. By October 2021 it had reached almost the same volume as in all of 2019. New links, such as the one flown by MNG Airlines, which has served New York thrice a week since November with Airbus A330-300P2Fs, will ensure a record result for CGN.
The Turkish airline deploys a converted freighter, highlighting a dilemma. The supply of full-freighters can only grow slowly, but the gap to demand can only be closed with belly freight. So the study recommends taking a holistic view of passenger and cargo traffic, and creating commercial incentives for more international flights.