Rhine-Main has successfully defended its position as the Number 1 Cargo Airport in Europe in 2024. Pierre Dominique Prümm, Executive Board Member Aviation and Infrastructure at Fraport AG, and Kristine Heinisch, Team Leader Cargo Development, drew this conclusion shortly before the turn of the year, at the aircargo club deutschland (acd)’s annual closing meeting on Tuesday 17DEC24. Attended by 50 acd members, the event at Frankfurt Airport focused on current developments in air freight as well as the ‘CargoHub Master Plan’ which the two Fraport executives presented to the participants.
With a freight volume of 1.5 million tons in the third quarter of 2024 alone, Frankfurt remains the undisputed leader in Europe. However, the competition is not sleeping either. Airports such as Liège and Luxembourg are benefiting greatly from the current e-commerce avalanche and are getting closer in terms of volumes. Yet Rhine-Main has a decisive advantage over its European competitors, Pierre Dominique Prümm emphasized during his presentation. “While many airports specialize in either passengers or freight, Frankfurt offers a good balance between the two segments. Freighter flights are optimally utilized, and, at the same time, belly freight can be transported efficiently in the lower decks of passenger aircraft to a variety of intercontinental destinations,” thanks to the large network that Frankfurt offers, he added. The charm is the combination of pure cargo traffic, i.e. the offer of main deck capacity in conjunction with belly cargo transported by passenger aircraft.
Master plan paves the way for cargo growth
The ‘CargoHub Master Plan’ is the operator’s answer to future challenges and their fulfillment. To realize this, Fraport has secured 48 hectares of real estate and intends to build warehouses and a building for accommodating forwarding agents, among others. The project includes the area that belonged to the former chemical plant, Ticona, which had to leave the site for safety reasons when Runway Northwest was built. The entire project illustrates to the market that Fraport intends to create long-term cargo capacity and expects air freight throughput to grow in the long term by 2.2% per year – at minimum. The intended measures complement the optimized use of space in CargoCity South, which, among other things, creates additional capacity for e-commerce and charging infrastructure for electric trucks.
acd’s role in air freight
For the organization, the event was the opportunity to acknowledge Fraport’s efforts to enable air freight to grow unabated, but also to emphasize its own role as a debating platform deeply rooted in the industry. “We welcome Fraport’s ambitious plans and are prepared to actively support them,” explained acd President, Christopher Stoller. The 61-year-old association, founded in 1963, has 200 members and remains a leading voice for all aspects related to the cargo industry.
In addition to Fraport’s cargo masterplan, the attendees also discussed the challenges posed by new EU customs requirements and the need to speed up the digitalization of all relevant freight processes.
One final remark from Pierre Dominique Prümm: “The CargoHub Master Plan proves that we are not only pursuing the goal of strengthening Frankfurt, but also setting global standards. Only by working together in the industry we will be able to master the challenges of the future.”
Stella Scheibenzuber
