Hong Kong International Airport (HKIA) saw its cargo volume sustain its rise in March as imports continued to grow, the Airport Authority said.

In a statement, HKIA said cargo throughput increased 4.9% year-on-year to 397,000 tonnes. This is also up from the 310,000 tonnes seen in February.

Over the first three months of the year, Hong Kong airport handled 1.1 million tonnes of cargo, increasing 13% over the same period last year.

"The growth in cargo volume last month was mainly attributed to double-digit growth in imports," HKIA said.

"Despite a decline in transshipments due to a shortage of belly capacity on passenger flights, the overall cargo throughput saw an increase during the month, most significantly in the traffic to and from the Middle East, Southeast Asia and Taiwan," it added.

Meanwhile, the airport handled 58,000 passengers and 10,620 flights in March, marking year-on-year decreases of 89.9% and 12.5%, respectively.

On a 12-month rolling basis, cargo traffic fell by 2.0% to 4.6 million tonnes and aircraft movements dropped 66.2% to 127,760 over the period.

Focus on digitization

In March, HKIA said it jointly completed a pilot project on IATA’s ONE Record digital initiative with Cathay Pacific Cargo and other members of Hong Kong’s air cargo community, with the aim to enable more efficient and accurate air cargo handling through digitalisation.

In this pilot, shipment content and status from various sources are exchanged using ONE Record models and protocols, through which a single trusted view among multiple stakeholders can be enabled. In this pilot, AA made use of its newly developed cargo community platform, which is in compliance with ONE Record standard.

"We pursue digitalisation in our operations to sustain our market competitiveness as aligned to the future of business. As a smart airport, HKIA is proactively driving various innovative and technology-based initiatives for the cargo community. Through such digital collaboration, we are driving Hong Kong’s air cargo industry to enter a new frontier," said Cissy Chan, executive director, Commercial of the Airport Authority.