Brussels growth reaches double-digit percentage levels in June

Brussels airport continued its strong start to the year with cargo growth of almost 16% in June compared with a year ago, despite the general slowdown in European volume growth.
The Belgian airport saw cargo volumes in June increase to 43,187 tons compared with 37,262 tons a year earlier.
Most of the growth stemmed from new freighter services Ethiopian Airways, Qatar Cargo, Yangtze River Express and the addition of KF Aerospace in May.
These additional flights resulted in an increase in freighter volumes of 41.6% compared with last June to 13,726 tons.
Its integrator volumes for the month increased to 17,177 tons compared with 15,283 tons a year earlier as DHL also recorded an uplift in tonnage.
June’s belly cargo volumes were flat compared with last year at 12,284 tons.
For the year so far, the airport has now recorded growth of almost 10% compared with the first six months of 2014.
“The strong growth in cargo recorded over the first six months confirms the growing importance of Brussels Airport as a primary logistics hub in Europe,” said Brussels Airport Company chief executive Arnaud Feist.
The airport continued to buck the wider trend experienced by most western European air cargo facilities, which  have been recording slight increases in throughput, or even declines, as the European economy continues to falter.
Brussels is hoping that cargo growth in percentage terms will end the year at double-digit levels.
It said it had won the new freighter services because of its “easy connections with the road network” and “high-quality and specialised infrastructure for the safe and fast handling of perishables, pharmaceuticals and biotech goods”.