Hong Kong International Airport (HKIA), the world's busiest cargo hub, continued its growth in March, with air freight volumes increasing for the seventh consecutive month.

Airport Authority Hong Kong (AAHK) released the air traffic figures in Hong Kong for March, and export traffic boosted its cargo throughput for the month, registering a year-on-year increase of 15.1% to 428,000 tonnes in March.

Month-on-month, March's performance was also higher than the 324,000 tonnes recorded in February — which was 11.7% up from the comparable period in 2023.

"HKIA has now posted double-digit year-on-year growth in cargo each month in 2024, on the back of another successful year in 2023 for which HKIA was once again named the busiest cargo airport in the world by Airports Council International (ACI)," AAHK said in a statement.

"Export traffic was again the main driver in March, recording a 23.7% increase compared to the same month last year."

It added that among key trading regions, cargo traffic to and from North America, Europe and the Middle East rose most significantly during the month.

For the first quarter of the year, airport flight movements increased by 63.7% to 86,210.

Meanwhile, cargo volume for the January-March period rose by 18.9% year-on-year to more than 1.1 million tonnes.

AAHK said on a 12-month rolling basis, flight movements and cargo throughput saw year-on-year increases of 92.1% and 9.1% to 309,650 and 4.5 million tonnes, respectively.

Hong Kong International Airport retained its title as the world's busiest cargo airport in 2023, according to ACI World data.

The latest report showed HKG maintaining the top spot for air cargo volumes globally from 2023. The airport has been the consistent top cargo hub for 13 years, although it dropped 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 the world's busiest air cargo hub in 2023, recording 4.33 million metric tonnes of cargo last year, up 3.2% from the 4.2 million metric tonnes in 2022.

However, 2023's figures are still down by 9.9% from the pre-pandemic volume at Hong Kong International Airport.