Cargo volumes at Frankfurt Airport continued to decline in February as the global economic downturn and war in Ukraine affected the airfreight market.

Air Cargo News reports the German air cargo hub in February registered an 11% year-on-year decline in cargo volumes to 146,620 tonnes. Volumes were also 9.1% behind pre-COVID 2019 levels and followed an 18% year-on-year drop in cargo demand in January.

Explaining the fall, airport operator Fraport said: “As in the previous months, the decline was attributable to the overall economic slowdown and the discontinued air traffic to/from Russia.”

The airport operator said 2022 revenues increased 49% year on year to €3.2 billion ($3.42 billion), earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortization increased 36% to €1 billion, and net profit increased 81.5% on 2021 to €166.6 million.

Frankfurt, Europe's busiest cargo airport, saw cargo volumes in 2022 decline by 13.3% year on year to 2 million tonnes. Hong Kong International Airport, the world's busiest by cargo volume, handled 4.2 million tonnes in 2022.