Brussels Airport continued to hurt from the departure of Ethiopian Cargo services from the airport
In January only, the Belgian airport recorded a big decline in airfreight demand and all happens due to the withdrawal of Ethiopian cargo services from the airport. Till 2015, this airport was one of the real success stories but suddenly saw a decline of 2.4 percent by year on year in January to almost 37 thousand tons.
Actual situation of Brussels airport
It is not only Ethiopian cargo services caused that big dent to the airport but the full freighter demand also suffered and faced more than 11 percent decline on a year earlier to around 10 thousand tons, while integrator volumes were almost flat at 15,699 tons.
Belly cargo on other hand, remained high by 3 percent to around 12 thousand tons.
What Brussels airport believes?
The airport said that the full freighter segment of its cargo department was still recovering from the departure of Ethiopian air cargo withdrawal after the carrier did not get the mandatory traffic rights to sustain its operations at the Brussels airport. The airline now nested to dutch hub Maastricht-Aachen airport.
Brussels airport company chief executive, Arnaud Feist believes that growth is all more striking because the air cargo services in Europe looked unwelcoming in the past year.
Overall situation in the region
Overall, the Brussels was one of the fastest growing airports in the region and it recorded the demand increase of around 8 percent in 2014 to just under half million tons. On other hand, the busiest airport in the area, Frankfurt cargo facility recorded a decline of 2.3 percent on year-on-year in 2015.
Brussels in that particular time remained vigorous with a full year cargo volume growth of 7.8 percent because of the arrival of new cargo carriers and express services at the Belgian airport. It is not only the cargo where Brussels has shown a growth but at the passenger side, it showed an increase of 7 percent and handled more than 23.4 million passengers, an increase of around 15 percent.
Ethiopian cargo to left Brussels
A spokesman to European cargo hub said that the Ethiopian cargo left the Brussels skies because they did get the air traffic rights to fly over the Belgian territories. In November this year, Brussels airport will no longer remain the home to Ethiopian airlines. The result is full freighter volume will decrease by 25 percent in the last two months compared to 2014.