Schiphol tonnages impacted by slowing Chinese output

A decline in airfreight between Asia and Europe saw Schiphol airport’s cargo volumes fall 1.8 per cent in the first three months of 2015 over like quarter 2014 to nearly 386,800 tonnes.
It was the Amsterdam hub’s first quarterly fall in cargo volumes for almost two years.
The Dutch airport’s senior VP Cargo, Enno Osinga, said: “The results are disappointing, but not unexpected, and not confined to Schiphol alone.
“China is our single largest market, and we are China’s largest gateway into Europe; so the slowing of its economy and manufacturing output are inevitably very visible in our traffic figures.”
While January (-2.3 per cent) and February (+2.1 per cent) tonnages maintained the previous year’s levels and smoothed the effect of the shift in dates of the Chinese New Year between 2014 and 2015, it was March’s decline of 4.7 per cent which resulted in the deficit.
Asia saw a reduction in share to 36.5 per cent of the total, representing a year-on-date drop of three per cent. North America maintained the second largest share at 18.9 per cent, up 4.4 per cent on 2014 Q1.
The Middle East accounted for 13.8 per cent (down 1.5 per cent), Africa’s share was 11.7 per cent (up 0.7 per cent) and Latin America came 5th with 11.2 per cent share (up 1.9 per cent).
Europe including Russia also saw a significant fall – to 7.9 per cent of the total (down 16 per cent quarter over quarter).
Freighter aircraft movements in the first quarter showed growth of 1.3 per cent over like period 2014, to a total of 4,080.
Osinga added: “Europe’s weaker tonnages are explained by the impact on flower traffic of falling Russian demand around Valentine’s Day and Women’s Day, caused by their currency weakness. The Europe figures additionally include transhipments to China, which are also affected by the cooling of Chinese trade.”
He continued: “This latest volatility in airfreight markets endorses our policy of continuing caution about over-predicting traffic increases.
“We hope for more stability and a return to gentle growth later this year, and meanwhile will continue undeterred on our path of process optimisation, to further strengthen our proposition. This will be the best insulator from wider market issues beyond our control.”