Hahn ends 2009 on a high
04 / 03 / 2010
FRANKFURT Hahn, the airport in Rhineland Palatinate, which pits itself as an alternative cargo gateway to mighty Frankfurt, ended 2009 on a high note. December brought a 37 per cent surge in throughput over the same month in 2008. The previous month had seen a new record freight level for Hahn, with 21,660 tonnes passing through the airport.
Buoyed by a strong rise in cargo since August, Hahn ended 2009 with a total of 174,664 tonnes handled, just 2.9 per cent off its accumulated tonnage of 2008.
A huge factor behind this recovery in the second half of 2009 was Air Cargo Germany, the 747 freighter operator which picked Hahn as its base. ACG mounted regular charter flights to Asia in July and commenced scheduled operations to Shanghai and Hong Kong in December, shortly after receiving the requisite traffic rights.
Udo Preissner, Hahn’s director of marketing and sales, emphasised that the airport’s strong showing in the second half of last year was not entirely due to ACG’s take-off. Hahn’s longer serving carriers – Aeroflot, Etihad and Egypt Air – also enjoyed growing traffic since August, he said.
