Schiphol Experiencing 18.4% Cargo Slump
Stewart PerryAmsterdam Schiphol Airport recently reported that it experienced a reduction in cargo traffic of nearly a fifth in 2009 over the previous year. Fright shipments to the air facility in the Dutch capital slumped by 18.4 percent over the previous year to a total of 1.28 million tonnes, based on provisional numbers.
According to the Schiphol Group chief executive officer Jos Nijhuis, the slide in cargo traffic in Amsterdam has bottomed out and should resume with growth in 2010 with estimated increases of between 1 and 2 percent.
The decrease experienced in 2009 in terms of freight traffic at the Amsterdam airport is said to represent the largest slump since 2000 and the outcome exceeded the airport’s prediction of a 15 percent slide mostly due to a large cut in capacity at Air France-KLM, Schiphol’s main client in terms of cargo business.
Air France-KLM, in a bid to maximize “belly” capacity on the airline’s passenger and passenger/freight combination aircraft grounded 11 of its 29 cargo airliners which included eight Boeing 747-400Fs. The carrier has reduced its winter freight capacity by 15percent.
However, there has been a recovery in cargo activity experienced at Schiphol during the second half of 2009 with the slide slowing to less than 10 percent over the previous year. The facility even saw small gains in the last three months.
London’s Heathrow airport surpassed Amsterdam Schiphol and became the third most important air cargo hub in Europe. In 2009, a total of 1.58 million tonnes were handled at Heathrow during the first eleven months of the year. Despite being a slump of 10.6 percent over the previous year, the figures proved enough to push the Britain’s largest airport past Schipol and finish just behind Frankfurt and Paris Charles de Gaulle.
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Filed under Business & Finance, Europe News, Travel News, World News