Air freight continues to make progress at Brussels Airport, with a strong 18.9% increase in volumes observed in September.
Cargo: fourth consecutive monthly increase in air freight
For the fourth consecutive month, air freight has seen an increase in volumes transported, up 18.9% compared with September 2019. Thanks to this very positive result, Brussels Airport continues to outperform global and European air freight growth. The main cause of the overall negative growth is still the halt in wide-body passenger flights, which severely limits capacity, with freight on passenger aircraft carrying 50% of the freight transported worldwide.
Express services is maintaining its growth compared with last year (+33.8%), while the increase in volumes in the full cargo sector (+88.8%) is accelerating the growth in air freight volumes. This compensates for the limited volumes on passenger flights.
The number of full cargo flights in September is well above the 2019 level, with a slight increase compared to the previous month. The number of additional flights by passenger aircraft used for freight-only flights remains constant. This does not, therefore, lead to an increase in night flights.
Freight transported by lorry is down again (-14.1%), yet the total volume of goods handled by the Brucargo logistics platform is still increasing, with a total increase of 11.4% to 56,748 tons.
Imports and exports are on the rise. As far as imports are concerned, traffic from Africa is doing particularly well. On the export side, Asia is highly valued.
