Amsterdam Airport Schiphol’s trade with South America has bloomed due to strong flower imports, while China also saw growth in the first quarter.

Latin American imports increased 10 per cent to 34,097 tonnes helped by high demand for St. Valentine’s Day and International Women’s Day, while exports were up 31 per cent to 20,701 tonnes.

China, the airport’s largest market saw an increase of 2.1 per cent to 30,735 tonnes helped by growth in both freighter volumes and cargo flying the belly of passenger aircraft.

Asian imports saw a dip of four per cent 67,629 tonnes and exports increased one per cent to 75,182 tonnes.

Full freighter volumes were down 2.4 per cent with 7.4 per cent fewer full freighter air traffic movements (ATM) and belly volumes eased with a 1.6 per cent decrease in the first quarter.

Schiphol director aviation marketing, cargo and customer experience, Maaike van der Windt says: “Although we saw an increase in ATMs and as a result increased volumes of belly cargo at Schiphol, this did not result in a commensurate increase in freight volumes and did not compensate for the reduction in full freighter ATMs.

“This has had a knock-on effect in our first quarter results, but there are nonetheless underlying positive growth trends in cargo business from China and Latin America that we hope to build upon over the coming year.”