Booming Liège moves into the big league

LIEGE has been something of an unnoticed success story among European cargo airports, quietly building up its business year after year until now it is the continent’s seventh largest freight hub after Frankfurt, Paris, Amsterdam, London, Luxembourg and Cologne.

Not only has it now surpassed such significant cargo airports as Brussels and Ostend, but its throughput in 2009 also put it ahead of Delhi, Jakarta and Toronto, and not so far behind Dallas Fort Worth or Leipzig (the European hub of DHL).

Though like almost every other airport in the world, it experienced a dip in traffic during the year, it was also not such a massive dip – just seven per cent to 482,121 tonnes. This year, Liege is confident it will make up that ground and then some, with tonnage rising to 600,000 tonnes, an increase of 25 per cent, or 16 per cent above 2008 levels.

For the full story read the latest free digital edition of Air Cargo News, no. 688 dated 18 October, here.