13 / 02 / 2020
By Damian Brett
Chicago Rockford International Airport (RFD) handled record volumes of cargo last year helped by the expansion of Amazon Air operations.
The Illinois airport saw cargo volumes grow by 11% year on year in 2019 to reach just over 1m tonnes.
In just five years, RFD has tripled the amount of cargo landing in Rockford.
RFD is home to the second largest UPS hub in North America, which continues to increase its daily cargo flights.
The airport also serves other air cargo carriers, including ABX Air, ATI, and Atlas Air.
With the airport’s recent cargo expansions and additional flights announced by Amazon Prime and other Amazon carriers, Rockford is quickly becoming a “Midwest hub for e-commerce freight”, it claimed.
“We continue to see the cargo numbers increase due to the partnerships RFD has secured and nurtured throughout the past several years,” said Mike Dunn, executive director at RFD.
“In addition to our larger partners, we’ve been able to secure several additional organisations which further impacts our region’s job growth and economic development.”
In July 2019, the Federal Aviation Administration released its calendar year 2018 all-cargo data which ranked RFD as the 19th largest cargo airport in the nation, with growth of almost 55% year on year.
Additionally, in September 2019, Airports Council International (ACI) named RFD as the fastest-growing cargo airport in the world for 2018 for airports that handled more than 250,000 metric tons of air cargo.