Freight volumes at Leipzig/Halle Airport (LEJ), Europe’s fourth-largest air cargo hub, rose by 20.9% to more than 359,000 tonnes during the first quarter of 2021, and the German gateway is on course for further growth by year end.
Leipzig/Halle handled more than 1.38m tonnes of cargo in 2020, which set a new record. The volume of cargo handled in March, approx. 135,000 tonnes, was 25.5% higher than the same month in 2020.
Said an airport spokesperson: “The airport is increasingly being used as a handling centre for medical air supplies and protective equipment in the battle against the Covid-19 pandemic.
“It has therefore regularly handled cargo charter flights that have been transporting millions of Covid-19 tests during the past few weeks, in addition to normal traffic.
“These shipments included about 690,000 COVID-19 antigen rapid tests for schools in Saxony. Nearly all these cargo flights are being operated by passenger aircraft.
Leipzig/Halle is a larger DHL’s hub and it is the first regional air cargo centre for Amazon Air in Europe. This makes the airport one of the most important hubs for express and e-commerce shipments.
Overall, about 60 cargo airlines fly to the airport and serve a network of routes, which covers more than 200 destinations around the globe.
More than 10,800 people are currently employed at Leipzig/Halle Airport or are working for companies and public authorities based there. This figure includes about 8,200, who work in the freight handling, cargo airline, logistics and freight forwarding sectors alone.
