Bruce Barnard, Special Correspondent | Mar 13, 2012 9:59AM EDT
Frankfurt airport handled 9.1 percent less cargo in February than a year ago as a night flight ban mostly affecting freighter flights and sharply lower Asian traffic weighed on Europe’s second largest air cargo hub.
The decline, to 155,105 metric tons, marked a big improvement on a 16.8 percent year-over-year decline in January. This was the result of an extra day in February due to the leap year and the impact of the two week long Chinese New Year, which began on January 23 this year but fell wholly in February in 2011.
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Lufthansa Cargo Volume Drops 3.4 Percent
Traffic for the first two months of the year totaled 296,444 tons, down 12.9 percent on the same period in 2011, airport owner Fraport AG said.
Cargo traffic at Fraport’s five majority-owned airports – Frankfurt, Lima, Peru; Antalya, Turkey and Burgas and Varna in Bulgaria – fell 9.2 percent in February to 174,620 tons.
London Heathrow, Europe’s fourth largest cargo hub, reported February freight traffic down two percent at 115,920 tons and 2.7 lower for the first two months of the year at 228,244 tons.
Contact Bruce Barnard at brucebarnard47@hotmail.com.