
Source: Dallas / Fort Worth International Airport (DFW), Hong Kong International Airport (HKG) and Kansai International Airport (KIX).
In the 1980s and 1990s traffic handled by DFW grew rapidly, but peaked in 2000 just above 60 million passengers and 950,000 tons. Over the next 15 years little change took place for passenger traffic, while air cargo steadily declined. The stagnation of air cargo is in part attributed to the erosion of the Texan IT sector as well as the NAFTA trade being by-passed by economic growth in Asia. Most of the growth in air cargo flows took place across the Pacific, a market which is not much serviced by DFW.
A similar observation can be made for Kansai, which has not experienced much growth. While during the 1990s, the Japanese electronics industry was still growth, many of its activities were relocated to China. For Hong Kong, the growth has been substantial and the airport is the largest air freight platform in the world, servicing the Pearl River Delta.