Hong Kong International Airport (HKG) retained its title as the world's busiest cargo airport in 2022, according to data released by the Airports Council International (ACI) World.
The latest report showed HKG maintaining the top spot for air cargo volumes globally from 2021, when it regained the busiest air freight hub accolade after dropping to second in 2020 due to the wide-ranging impacts of Covid-19.
The global trade representative of the world's airport authorities said HKG remained in the top rank as the world's busiest air cargo hub in 2022 — recording 4.2 million metric tonnes of cargo last year, although down 16.4% year-on-year.
Memphis International Airport (MEM) — home to the FedEx Express global hub — took the second spot with 4 million metric tonnes, also down 9.8%.
Anchorage Airport (ANC) took the third spot with 3.5 million metric tonnes of cargo, also down 4.3% compared to the year prior.
ACI World said Shanghai Pudong Airport (PVG) recorded 3.1 million metric tonnes for 2022, declining 21.7% year-on-year — losing its spot to ANC and ending up in 4th position.
"Air cargo volumes are estimated to have decreased by 6.7% year-over-year (-1.7% versus 2019) to close to 117 million metric tonnes in 2022," the global trade representative of the world's airport authorities said.
It added that air cargo volumes in the top 10 airports for air cargo traffic — representing around 27% (30.8 million metric tonnes) of the global volumes in 2022 — lost 9.9% in 2022 year-over-year (but kept a gain of 4.1% versus 2019 results).
"The decline can be attributed to the ongoing geopolitical tensions and disruptions to global trade and supply chains," WorldACD said.
ACI said Hong Kong also maintained its top spot in terms of international freight metric tonnes (4.17 million metric tonnes), followed by South Korea's INC (2.91 million metric tonnes).
Shanghai took the third spot with 2.57 million metric tonnes, while Taipei kept the 4th spot, followed by Tokyo, Anchorage, Doha, Miami, Frankfurt, and Singapore.
ACI World said 2022 global aircraft movements are close to 89 million, constituting a gain of 20.4% from the 69 million global aircraft movements in 2021.
It said that this represents a recovery of 82.5% from pre-pandemic levels (2019).
The top 10 airports for aircraft movements — representing close to 7% of global traffic (5.7 million movements) — witnessed a gain of 11.4% from their 2021 results, recovering to 91.5% vis-à-vis their 2019 results (6.2 million in 2019).
ACI said Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport (ATL) is at the top with 724 thousand movements (up 2.3% from 2021) but still below its 2019 result of 904 thousand movements (-19.9%).
Chicago O’Hare International Airport (ORD) — with 712 thousand movements, up 4% — is in 2nd rank after leading ATL in 2019 and 2018, followed by Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport (DFW) with 657 thousand movements, up 0.7%).
