Hong Kong Air Cargo Terminals (Hactl, which handles about 80% of the cargo at Hong Kong International Airport) reported its handle for the first eleven months of 2010 up 26.7% over 2009 to 2.65 million tonnes, and up 10.8% over the previous best eleven-month total of 2.39 million tonnes in 2007. In fact, with a month still to go in 2010, Hactl has already broken its full-year record of 2.62 million tonnes set in 2007. This in no way alters the fact that our industry lost two years of growth in the worldwide recession of 2008/2009, but does indicate that growth is returning at a faster pace than many observers expected.
For the month of November, Hactl reported its handle up 5.6% y-o-y to 255,000 tonnes. This was down from the the 261,000 tonnes handled in October, but is still above the previous November high point of 251,000 tonnes in 2007 (which was also Hactl’s all-time highest monthly total). The strongest growth was in transshipment cargo, up 19.9% to 49,000 tonnes. Export volume was up 4.5% to 146,000 tonnes, while import volume was down 1.7% to 60,000 tonnes.