ACI statistics reveal solid October performance

Airports Council International (ACI) Europe, the trade body representing the Continent’s air gateways, has released its air traffic report for October, revealing that airfreight traffic across the European airport network averaged year-on-year growth of 6.2% in the month.
Airports located in EU nations averaged 5.3% year-on-year airfreight traffic growth in October, while gateways based in non-EU member countries averaged 11.6% growth in cargo traffic.
Over the first 10 months of this year, ACI Europe member airports averaged 8.9% year-on-year growth in airfreight traffic, with those in EU nations averaging 7.9% growth and non-EU airports 14.7% growth.
Looking at some of the Continent’s biggest and busiest airports, London Heathrow saw its cargo traffic rise to 154,492 tonnes in October this year, a rise of 9.2% on the same month of 2016.
Over the first 10 months of this year, Heathrow’s volumes were up by 10.3% over the same period of 2016.
Germany’s biggest airfreight gateway, Frankfurt, saw year-on-year growth in cargo traffic of 0.4% in October, its throughput reaching 184,872 tonnes. Frankfurt’s January – October cargo traffic rose by 4.9% year-on-year.
Paris Charles de Gaulle handled 178,000 tonnes of air cargo in October, up by 1.4% year-on-year. Its January – October throughput rose by 2.5% year-on-year.
Meanwhile, Amsterdam Airport Schiphol processed 154,584 tonnes of airfreight in October, up by 0.9% year-on-year. Its January – October throughput rose by 7.4% compared to the same period of 2016.
Turkey’s busiest airport, Istanbul Ataturk, handled 100,443 tonnes of cargo in October, up by 11.1% year-on-year, continuing an impressive year for the gateway. Its throughput rose by 15.8% year-on-year over the January – October period.
Two of the biggest year-on-year October increases in cargo throughput were seen at Oslo and London Gatwick. whose airfreight throughputs rose by 36.6% to reach 13,119 tonnes and by 32.1% to 10,316 tonnes respectively.
October’s year-on-year growth in aircraft movements also remained robust, at a figure of 4.4%.
ACI Europe represents more than 500 airports across 45 European nations. Its members handled over 20 million tonnes of freight during 2016.
According to an earlier report, ACI reported that year-on-year growth in global airfreight traffic fell to 6.8% in September, which was down from 10.5% in August.