Top 50 Cargo Airports: Which air hubs rose or fell?
Domestic bliss
While e-commerce had a positive effect on most airports in the Top 50 list, the shift was most pronounced in the domestic cargo sector, which saw 15 airports achieve double-digit growth in 2016, four of which had increases exceeding 20 percent and were located in the United States.
Fort Worth Alliance Airport (AFW, No. 49) led in terms of domestic growth rate (32.5 percent), albeit from a relatively small base, with 147,000 tonnes in 2016. The next-highest growth, however, came from FWA’s much larger neighbor, Dallas-Fort Worth (DFW, No. 18), which rose by 25 percent to 382,000 tonnes. Most of this Fort Worth-area growth came from its use as one of the regional hubs for FedEx Express.
Phoenix Sky Harbor Airport (PHX, No. 24) had a 21.1percent y-o-y gain in domestic freight, while Seattle-Tacoma (SEA, No. 38) reported a 20.1 percent increase. Other notable double-digit domestic risers were Hangzhou (HGH, 16.2 percent), Xi’an (XIY, 16.1 percent), Ontario (ONT, 14.9 percent), and Ho Chi Minh City (SGN, 13.8 percent).
In New York, ACI reported that JFK International (No. 22) handled 1.28 million tonnes of total cargo in 2016, which was slightly down by 0.6 percent versus 2015. However, “we saw a significant increase in mail, which grew 6.8 percent in 2016, mostly driven by strong e-commerce traffic,” said Michael Bednarz, JFK’s manager of air cargo business development. The small decline, he said, can be attributed to sluggishness in the first half of 2016 and the lingering effects from the 2015 U.S. West Coast port slowdown, among other factors.
Outlook for 2018?
By most accounts, the near future for air cargo will remain strong – especially in regions where major airports are being built to handle the world’s insatiable appetite for e-commerce.
For instance, Cincinnati/Northern Kentucky International Airport (CVG, No. 36), already home to one of three DHL global “super hubs,” is also the future global hub for Amazon Prime Air. CVG has benefitted from having four runways – three in excess of 3,000 meters – that had been underutilized until DHL and Amazon came along, said Mindy Kershner, CVG’s senior manager of public and government affairs. As Amazon moves forward, it will lease more than 900 acres at CVG. With its added traffic, CVG has been able to lower its landing fees by 44 percent over the last four years. “With additional landed weight that Amazon will add, it will help drive down landing fees even more,” Kershner added.
At ORD, the Chicago Department of Aviation said that, as occupancy rapidly expands at the airport’s new “cargo Northeast cargo campus,” O’Hare is on pace to have “another record year in 2017” and expects continued growth in 2018.
JFK’s Bednarz said the airport revised its 2018 forecast, now calling for 3.5 percent annual growth. Last year’s addition of Air France-KLM’s new 70,000-square-foot cargo terminal is expected to help actualize these predictions. “We are optimistic about longer-range forecasts for JFK as we have new freighter operators coming into the market as well as expected growth from existing airlines,” he added.
The current good times have been a pleasant surprise for the industry, but they can disappear just as easily as they arrived. ACI forecasted that air cargo volume will continue to rise at annual rates averaging 7.4 percent worldwide for 2017 and 2018, but Angela Gittens cautioned that the rate can’t continue indefinitely, citing potential geo-political unrest, threats to security and a “wave of protectionist rhetoric” that could threaten prosperity.
“Even with the prevailing strength in consumer confidence across major economies and relatively sound economic fundamentals as our backdrop,” she added, “cautious optimism should be the prevailing sentiment.”
Back to Top 50 Feature | Strength in metro airport clusters | See the Top 50 lists
