Rival aviation hubs Hong Kong International Airport (HKIA) and Singapore Changi Airport both posted air cargo declines for September.
HKIA reported a 0.8 percent drop in airfreight volume to 344,000 metric tons, mainly attributed to a 3 percent year-on-year drop in imports. Exports recorded a slight decline, while transshipments registered a 1 percent increase in September compared to the same month last year.
For the first three quarters of 2013, HKIA handled 3 million metric tons of cargo, representing a year-on-year increase of 1.7 percent. On a rolling 12-month basis, cargo tonnage grew 2.8 percent to 4.1 million metric tons compared to the the same period last year.
Meanwhile, Singapore Changi Airport reported a 2.5 percent decline in airfreight traffic to 152,800 metric tons for September year-over-year.
For the first three quarters of 2013, shipments handled reached 1.4 million metric tons, up by 0.7 percent from the corresponding period in 2012.
On the other hand, Cargolux introduced in the middle of this month a second 747-8 freighter service from Hong Kong to the Austrian capital of Vienna, just two months after Europe’s all-cargo airline introduced its first service.
“The rapid success of that service has prompted the second weekly flight to Vienna, a traditional east-west cargo transfer point,” a company statement read.
The second service commenced with the landing of Cargolux flight CV 6713 on October 17 at Vienna International Airport.
The cargo flights on Thursdays and Saturdays transport mostly high-tech products and textiles from China and health-care products, heavy machinery, and spare parts from Vienna.
