For the fifth month in a row, air freight has increased by 17.1 percent compared to October 2019. Thanks to this result Brussels Airport continues to grow faster in air cargo than Europe and the rest of the world. The main reason for the overall negative growth is the fact that passenger flights with large aircraft are still stationary, thus limiting capacity, as the cargo on board passenger aircraft accounts for a significant proportion of the freight transported worldwide.
Volumes in the freight segment more than doubled compared to the same period in 2019 (+114 percent). Express services also continue to grow strongly compared to last year (+19 percent). This largely compensates for the limited volumes on passenger flights.
On the other hand, truncated freight is falling again (-6 percent), which does not prevent the total volume of goods handled by the Brussels Airport logistics platform from rising by at least 12 per cent to 61,353 tonnes by October 2020.
In particular, imports, but to a lesser extent also exports, have increased. In particular, the flow of goods from and towards Asia experienced strong growth in October.
