The world's number one airfreight hub, Hong Kong International Airport (HKIA), has blamed extreme weather for a slight fall in its September cargo and passenger volumes, reports aircargo news.
HKIA said the decrease is “due primarily to Typhoon Mangkhut, which resulted in no flight movement for more than 20 hours”.
Cargo and airmail throughput was 431,000 tonnes in September, a drop of 1.4 per cent compared to the same month last year, according to the report.
The airport authority said that the reduction in cargo throughput was mainly the result of a 4 per cent decrease in exports. In contrast, transhipments continued to be the relatively stronger cargo category, achieving a 3 per cent year-on-year growth.
Among the key trading regions, traffic to and from Europe and Japan declined most significantly.
Over the first nine months of 2018, HKIA handled 3.75m tonnes of cargo and airmail, representing year-on-year increase of 2.6 per cent. Flight movements increased by 1.8 per cent to 318,650 compared to the same period last year, aircargo news said.
