April was particularly strong month, seeing 137,666 tonnes of freight travel through the European cargo hub compared to 128,843 tonnes the previous April, up 6.8% year-on-year. June figures were also high, reaching 135,528 tonnes, equating to a growth factor of 2.5% year-on-year.
In total, cargo throughput for January to June 2016 was 796,801 tonnes compared to 784,567 tonnes in the same period in 2015, amounting to the 1.6% year-on-year average growth. During this time there were 8,801 freighter movements, compared to 8,218 in the same period in 2015, up 7.1%.
Jonas van Stekelenburg, Head of Cargo, Schiphol, commented: “Compared to the other main European hubs we had a good first half year in terms of volume: we attracted some new carriers such as Jet Airways, and experienced growth of some existing carriers such as DHL.”
European freight showed the strongest growth in the first two quarters of 2016, increasing by 41.7% from the previous year to 90,991 tonnes, due in part to the development in carriers at the airport. Silk Way, one of Schiphol’s newer carrier’s, ships to Asia via Baku and AirBridgeCargo, which has recently extended services from Schiphol, ships via Moscow – both of which are considered European cities.
Asia remains Schiphol’s biggest market, showing only a 5.8% dip over the whole six-month period, contributing 276,312 tonnes of freight from January to June 2016 compared to 293,293 tonnes in the same period in 2015. “Asia is a very important market for us, and we are pleased to see that Schiphol remains an attractive hub for carriers from the region,” van Stekelenburg added.
“Our strong Cargo Community at Schiphol continues to implement forward thinking initiatives such as Pharma Gateway Amsterdam, and our Milk Run scheme, because we are focussed on delivering the best service possible to our customers he went on to say. “We are looking forward to more growth over the rest of the year.”
Growth in air cargo from other regions included 2.3% growth from Africa for the first six months of 2016, at 90,870 tonnes compared to 88,859 tonnes in the same period last year. North America contributed 152,149 tonnes from January to June 2016, up 1.1% from the same period in 2015.
