keynote feature


Germany is at the heart of industrial Europe and its air cargo business certainly reflects that fact.The country’s logistics industry struggled as hard as any other across Europe during the economic collapse of 2008-09 – but nowthe business is coming back and the nation’s airlines are ready to handle theworkload. Mike Bryant reports


the economic collapse of 2008-09.Nevertheless, afterwhatwas an incredibly tough couple of years, 2010 sawGermany’s air freight industry get back on track – quickly and strongly. No better evidence of this recovery can be


found than in the come-back of traffic through Frankfurt-Main International airport. Germany’s busiest air cargo gateway enjoyed amore than healthy recovery in its throughput in 2010, handling a total of nearly 2.3million tonnes of freight andmail during the year. This represented an increase ofmore than 20 percent over the preceding 12months – a very


12 AIR LOGISTICSCHINA


Germany fights back to the top of the list G


ermany is at the heart of industrial Europe and its air cargo industry certainly reflects that fact.Yet the country’s logistics industry struggled as hard as any other across Europe during


welcome improvement for airport operator Fraport – and Stefan Schulte, executive board chairman, noted: “The aviation roller coaster of 2010 at times paralleled the stockmarket fever on hectic trading days. “We completed the yearwith positive results


overall, despite the onslaught of severewinter weather at the beginning and the end of 2010, despite strikes by airline staff and air traffic controllers in numerous countries, and despite the multi-day shutdown of European airspace due to the ash cloud crisis,”he added. The high rate of year-on-year increase cannot be


sustained indefinitely, of course – as the basis of comparison increases, so it becomes harder to maintain the rapid rate of growth. TheDecember cargo throughput at Frankfurt- Main, at 184,425 tonnes,was just 2.2 percent up on


Page 1  |  Page 2  |  Page 3  |  Page 4  |  Page 5  |  Page 6  |  Page 7  |  Page 8  |  Page 9  |  Page 10  |  Page 11  |  Page 12  |  Page 13  |  Page 14  |  Page 15  |  Page 16  |  Page 17  |  Page 18  |  Page 19  |  Page 20  |  Page 21  |  Page 22  |  Page 23  |  Page 24  |  Page 25  |  Page 26  |  Page 27  |  Page 28  |  Page 29  |  Page 30  |  Page 31  |  Page 32