Passengers are firmly back in growth now and within 10% of the all time high, yet freight is nowhere, although there are signs that we may have hit the bottom now.
In the past, flown freight throughput has mirrored the economy but about 6 months to a year ahead of published economic figures, so hopefully you are right.
Freight is quite happy to travel some distance on a truck to be consolidated at a point of departure, whilst the self-loading variety is not.
Indeed. It would be interesting to know how the throughput of the airport's transit sheds have done. In a study about 10 yeas ago it was estimated that the throughput in them was about 50% more than the flown figures with freight coming in to be consolidated / broken down on trucks from the SE, Brussels and AMS.
In addition, an unknown amount of air freight from the region was trundling up and down the M6 for consolidation elsewhere.