The hour of the specialists
2020 saw European airports handle 11.8% less airfreight than in 2019. That sounds like a lot, but is put in perspective by the 70.4% fall in the passenger segment. Apart from that the business allows operators to earn decent returns. For how much longer?
It all started so well. Early this year airlines – having registered 3.4% growth month-on-month in January and 5.6% in February – were full of optimism that the ups and downs of 2019 would soon be consigned to the dustbin of history (see page 10 of ITJ 11-12 / 2020).
The worst expectations triggered by the outbreak of Covid-19 in China soon became more than reality, however. The almost complete cessation of all global aviation activities in mid-March meant that European airports’ cargo volumes fell by 17.5% in said month. That sufficed to pull the figures for the entire first quarter down – 7.3% lower than in the same quarter of the previous year. That put paid to any optimism – albeit not everywhere.
These developments make a more differentiated look back at the year’s figures worthwhile. The figures come largely from ACI Europe, and they show how the individual gateways developed over the course of the four quarters of 2020.
The figure for the second quarter was one quarter lower than that for the previous year, representing the trough of the freight doldrums. The third quarter (–14.5%), and then above all the fourth quarter (–5.3%), clearly pointed towards a recovery. It’s likely that 2021 will begin with growth too –
despite the pressure on capacities. The latest figures will come out after the deadline for this issue, so you can follow developments in the ITJ Daily.
More millionaires
When looking at the individual airports it’s striking that the continent doesn’t have a single hub anymore whose annual throughput breaks through the 2 million t barrier. LGG, in turn, is the latest one to climb above the 1 million t mark.
Classic hub airports had a harder time of it, on account of the lost passenger customers, compared with those that bank heavily or almost exclusively on freight. The biggest losers include Munich and Rome. MUC came 16th last year, but with its 145,113 t (–56.2%) it isn’t ranked in the top twenty anymore. FCO’s cargo volumes shrunk by two thirds since 2018, to 69,499 t last year (–62.7%, see also page 13 of ITJ 9-10 / 2019). HHN is the biggest winner; the first quarter was its worst.
There were mixed figures from the UK’s airports. It’ll be interesting to follow further developments there, especially in the light of Brexit.
Shining a spotlight on the North
The cargo shifts in Scandinavia are particularly interesting. CPH suffered heavy losses, and Billund managed to keep its decline to –9.3% (67,149 t). Helsinki, however – 19th in 2019 – lost two fifths of that year’s volume, ended up with 125,426 t, and was unceremoniously catapulted out of the top twenty.
There were great gains made in some Swedish airports, albeit from rather low bases, for example at Stockholm Arlanda (+13.1% to 80,895 t) and Gothenburg (+10.2% to 19,676 t). Malmö lost a little (–3.2% to 21,387 t).
OSL made one of the biggest leaps forward. Norway’s capital city hub has once again made it into the top twenty European cargo hubs – for the first time in a long while.
