Europe’s third-largest cargo airport, Amsterdam Schiphol, closed 2015 with a total cargo throughput of 1.62 million tonnes, just 0.7 percent less than the record, which was set in 2014. The fourth quarter was Schiphol’s strongest, and also its first quarter of 2015 with consistent growth, which was 1.3 percent against Q4 2014. The fourth quarter also marked the culmination of five months of consecutive growth.
For the entirety of 2015, North America had the best growth in cargo throughput at 5.6 percent, followed by Latin America with 5.1 percent, Africa was up 0.5 percent y-o-y, Asia, which is Schiphol’s largest market, was down 2.8 percent, the Middle East was down slightly at -0.1 percent, but Europe, unfortunately, was down 12.7 percent on 2014. Freighter movements for the year numbered 16,775, up 1.2 percent y-o-y.
Ranking the regions in tonnage growth, Asia was on top with 38 percent, North America was next with 18.9 percent, the Middle East held third place with 13 percent, Africa followed with 10.9 percent of the share, Latin America was not far behind with 10.9 percent and Europe was sixth with only 8.3 percent, down from 9.5 percent in 2014.