Figures from Airports Council International (ACI) Europe show that overall cargo demand at European airports increased by 3.2% year on year in 2025.
Frankfurt returned to the top spot as its cargo volumes increased by 2% to 1.99m tonnes.
“Over the course of the year, a steady upward trend in cargo volumes at Frankfurt Airport became apparent,” the airport said.
“While the first half of the year was marked by overall stagnation, the second half of 2025 saw a significant rejuvenation.
“E-commerce proved to be a key growth driver. Routes from China to Europe also benefited from the abolition of the US “de minimis” rule, which caused the focus of trade to shift heavily to European markets.
“The result was clear growth in e-commerce consignments to Germany.”
Airport operator Fraport pointed out that unloaded cargo volumes from China set a new record of around 290,000 tonnes, up 26.9 %.
There was also a record when both directions are taken into account, with around 465,600 tonnes handled, up 21%.
The Frankfurt-Shanghai route had the highest cargo volumes of any route at the airport last year, while the Frankfurt-Chengdu and Frankfurt-Ezhou routes were also among the top three routes with the highest absolute growth figures.
On the other hand, volumes between Frankfurt and the US were down 3.7% year on year.
Frankfurt-Latin America increased by 3%, driven by increased imports from Mexico to Germany. Africa traffic increased by 8.5 %, while volumes with Europe and the Middle East reduced by 1.8 % and 5.1 % respectively.
Meanwhile, Istanbul Airport, which took the top spot for the first time in 2024, registered a 0.6% decline to 1.97m tonnes.
Rounding out the top five were Paris CDG, where volumes increased by 2.3% year on year to 1.92m tonnes, London Heathrow, where volumes improved by 0.8% to 1.55m tonnes, and Schiphol, which registered a decline of 4.2% to 1.43m tonnes.
According to the figures, the fastest-growing European airports for cargo traffic amongst the top 10 were Liege at 13.9% to 1.3m tonnes and Madrid at 9.6% to 840,331 tonnes.
The top 10 cargo airport to register the largest decline was Luxembourg, where volumes were down 0.9% year on year to 817,920 tonnes. There was also a decline of 0.5% to 1.27m tonnes at Leipzig.
The figures also highlight that cargo growth in percentage terms at the major passenger aviation hubs has lagged behind the overall market, with none of the top five players managing to grow faster than the overall European market improvement of 3.2%.
Source: https://www.aircargonews.net/editorial/2026/02/frankfurt-back-on-top-as-cargo-volumes-grow-at-european-hubs/
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