The World's Top 50 Cargo Airports
Cargo growth increasingly is taking on a Chinese character, but India also is claiming a larger place in global trade lanes
 y some accounts, Intel has had growing pains at the semiconductor plant it opened in the central China city of Chengdu, and that put something of a cloud over the technology giant's reported plan of building a fourth factory in China, this time in the city of Wuhan.
But there was little sign last year at Chengdu's airport that Intel or any other shipper was seeing a slowdown of any sort in getting on aircraft.
In fact, Chengdu was 17th among the world's fastest growing airports in 2006 and yet it only placed fourth among China's airports. That was just one indication that in 2006, air cargo expansion at airports around the world largely about two types of airports - those that were in the rapidly expanding markets and those that weren't.
In other words, airports were either doing business in China and India last year or they weren't growing much to speak of.
While most of the world's most familiar gateways grew at a single-digit pace in 2006, the expansion in China not only picked up steam, but the growth extended beyond Shanghai and Beijing as airports such as Shenzhen and Chengdu showed a higher profile in world trade lanes.
And the growth continued even beyond China's interior, into India, where the move beyond textile goods into more sophisticated factories and higher-value exports is starting to show up in the expansion of air cargo operations at airports.
India and Sri Lanka combined had five airports with more than 160,000 tonnes of cargo last year and four airports - Mumbai, Madras, Bangalore and Hyderabad - grew by double digits over 2005.
In fact, 10 of the 20 fastest growing airports in 2006 were in China, India and in the Middle East countries that provide important connections between Europe and Asia, the strongest sign yet that the long-set geographic balance in air trade is shifting to the East.
Beijing Capital Airport, with its 31.6 percent expansion to move beyond a million tonnes of cargo, showed remarkable growth, but Shanghai's young Pudong International Airport also grew 16.3 percent to move from eighth to sixth place among world airports. Pudong's cargo business has grown more than three-fold since 2003 and tonnage at Beijing has nearly doubled in that time.
The latest growth means five of the six largest cargo airports in the world - and seven of the top 10 - are either in Asia or, like Anchorage and Los Angeles, heavily depend on Asia trade.
This year's list of the world's busiest airports is compiled mostly from officials counts reported to Airports Council International along with separate reports from some airports that do not report directly to ACI.
And like 2005, the latest figures in Air Cargo World's report on top cargo airports shows important growth well beyond the most familiar hubs and gateways.
Growth of better than 20 percent in Xi'an, Muscat, Bangalore and Abu Dhabi showed economic prosperity spreading and air trade patterns are shifting. It's the sort of growth that's reflected in the rapid launches of new cargo airlines in recent years, with names such as Great Wall, Jade Cargo, AirBridge Cargo, Cargoitalia, Jett 8 and Cargo B pushing onto the scene, many of them offering services outside the most heavily traveled trade lanes.
That may be why among the largest European airports, only Frankfurt reported more than modest growth.
Liege, Belgium, the hub for TNT, was the fastest growing site in Europe. But the rapid growth at Vienna (12.1) percent and Budapest (17.3 percent), along with perhaps the 9.2 percent expansion at Munich International, suggested the European Union enlargement may be having an impact, tilting the balance of trade in Europe just a bit toward the old Eastern Europe.
While Beijing and Bangalore have been growing, airports more closely tied to trans-Atlantic trade have had a slower time of it.
Sites such as Amsterdam, London Heathrow, New York Kennedy, Miami, Paris and Chicago still carry heavy weight in air trade, but those trade lines appear more mature and the airports have expanded only slightly in cargo business since 2003.
One airport bucking that trend was Washington Dulles International, which saw a 16 percent increase in cargo business in 2006. But the United Airlines hub, like Atlanta, Dallas-Fort Worth, JFK and other American airports, is gaining freight from greater service to Asia.
Huntsville International Airport was the fastest growing airport outside Asia among the world's 300 largest airports, expanding 29.2 percent on the growing industrial business surrounding the Alabama airport.
Overall airline capacity is slipping or stagnant at most of the largest airports, based on aircraft movements, but the larger traffic patterns suggest global trade and its cargo transport service is advancing on a far different traffic from the passenger business.
Among the world's 30 busiest airports for aircraft movements last year, Beijing was the only one in Asia, and the China airport was No. 28. Beijing also was the fastest growing passenger airport, with 18.3 percent more passengers in 2006 than it had in 2005.
Hong Kong International's seemingly unyielding expansion yielded a bit in 2006, but the airport's 5.1 percent growth pace over 2005 was still almost double the growth at Memphis International, the main FedEx Express hub and the world's busiest cargo airport. Hong Kong's advance on Memphis has slowed this year, with the U.S. airport growing 4.9 percent in the first four months of 2007 while Hong Kong cargo business has been stagnant, including an ominous 5.4 percent decline in March.
Hong Kong may still be on a course to reach four million tonnes of cargo in the next few years. But even handler Hong Kong Air Cargo Terminals sees the future is deeper in China's mainland, where HACTL offers trucking connections Baiyun Guangzhou International Airport. Those trucks complete their trip within sight of the FedEx hub that will make Guangzho a central base for the express operator and push the airport further up the ranks of cargo centers.
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