World’s top cargo airports: Hong Kong and Memphis top the rankings

The world’s top 20 airports saw cargo demand increase by 6.8% year on year in 2017, with Hong Kong topping the table and none of the leading airports registering a decline in demand.
The annual statistics from the airport group show that the leading airfreight hubs handled 50.6m metric tonnes of cargo in 2017.
Air cargo demand in 2017 was boosted by improving world trade, inventory re-stocking and the growth of e-commerce. Improvements have begun to weaken this year.
Hong Kong was once again the busiest airport in 2017 as it saw cargo demand increase by 9.4% on last year to just over 5m metric tonnes. Just behind Hong Kong was FedEx home hub Memphis International, where demand was up 0.3% to 4.3m metric tonnes.
The fastest growing airport in the list was China’s Shanghai Pudong which recorded an 11.2% increase as it maintained third spot of the list.
The two airports to climb the most places on the list were London Heathrow, up two spots to 17, and Taipei, which climbed to ninth on the table from eleventh in 2016.
The biggest fallers were slot constrained Schiphol, down two spots to 19, and Miami International, down two places in fourteenth.
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