Bruce Barnard | Jul 13, 2010 10:45AM EDT
Frankfurt Airport boosted cargo volume by 29.9 percent in June from a year ago, extending a streak of steep month-by-month increases driven by buoyant Asian traffic.
Europe's biggest air cargo hub handled 192,508 metric tons, an all time high for June, which took traffic for the first half of the year to 1.09 million metric tons, an increase of 32.2 percent on the first six months of 2009.
The surge in June shipments followed a near 40 percent increase in cargo traffic in May to a monthly record of 204,332 metric tons.
Cargo is outpacing passenger traffic which grew by 7 percent in the first half of 2010 to 24.5 million.
Passenger numbers grew only 1.4 percent year-on-year but at 4.85 million was higher than any previous June in Frankfurt's history.
"These numbers convincingly show that the finance and economic crisis has been overcome and that the aviation industry -- despite several small traffic blips -- is back on track to reaching and even exceeding the results of the pre-crisis years," said Stefan Schulte, executive board chairman of Fraport, the airport owner.
Lufthansa, Frankfurt's biggest customer, said cargo traffic is benefiting from rising consumer demand in China and growing worldwide appetite for Chinese products.
"The cargo business is currently absolutely booming. For the first time in over ten years we are seeing not just strong imports out of China, but also strong exports to China," Lufthansa Chief Financial Officer Stephan Gemkow told Reuters.
Fraport said cargo traffic at its five majority-owned airports -- Antalya, Turkey; Burgas and Varna, Bulgaria; Lima, Peru and Frankfurt -- grew 27.5 percent year-on-year in June to 217,000 metric tons.
This took shipments in the first half of the year to 1.225 million metric tons, up 30 percent from the same period in 2009.
-- Contact Bruce Barnard at brucebarnard47@hotmail.com.