Air Arabia Cargo
G9Belly-hold capacity on the A320-family network — the largest single source of lift at RKT. The carrier's own station page for Ras Al Khaimah quotes this cargo desk for bookings.
Cargo · RAK Freight Centre
A freight centre with a hinterland
Two dedicated cargo buildings, X-ray screening, cold rooms and Customs on the field around the clock. Import, export, transshipment and inter-airport trucking — with the emirate's industrial free zones a short drive from the ramp.
Cargo desk
Acceptance, documentation and clearance questions all start here. Cargo handling and customs clearance operate around the clock.
- cargo@rakairport.com
- Mobile
- +971 50 627 1310
- Hours
- 24 hours, every day
The facility
Two buildings, one process
The RAK Freight Centre was built as a complete acceptance-to-clearance chain rather than a shed with a forklift: screening, weighing, segregated storage and the customs counter sit inside the same operation.
- Dedicated cargo buildings
- 2Dedicated cargo buildings
- Handling and clearance
- 24hHandling and clearance
- Freezer, loose cargo
- 36m³Freezer, loose cargo
- Chiller, loose cargo
- 36m³Chiller, loose cargo
The airport has published a cargo terminal area of about 3,000 m². That figure sits alongside the description of two dedicated buildings and has never been broken down building by building, so treat it as indicative until the cargo desk confirms it for your planning.
- Two buildings
- Storage plus separate secure areas for hazardous cargo and for valuables.
- Screening
- X-ray equipment on site within a full air cargo security regime.
- Weighing
- Electronic weighing equipment at acceptance.
- Loading docks
- Loading docks and handling equipment as part of the centre's fit-out.
- Cold rooms
- A freezer and a chiller of 36 m³ each, for loose cargo.
- Trailers
- Free parking spaces for large trailers.
What the centre accepts
General freight is the easy part
The commodities below are named in the airport's own acceptance list. Each one carries its own documentation, and several cannot be cleared at all without a specific permit — the customs page sets out which.
- General and bulk cargo
- Perishables
- Fresh meat
- Live animals
- Plants and plant products
- Dangerous goods
- Valuable cargo
- Diplomatic cargo
- Unaccompanied baggage
- Human remains
Traffic
Small base, steep curve
RKT is not a tonnage airport and there is no point pretending otherwise. What it has is a growth rate, a niche capability set and an industrial hinterland — which for most shippers is the part that matters.
- Cargo handled in 2024
- 6,652tCargo handled in 2024
- Year on year
- +97%Year on year
- Aircraft movements, 2024
- 7,440Aircraft movements, 2024
2024 figures were announced by RAK Department of Civil Aviation in January 2025. Full-year 2025 tonnage has not been published; we will not print an estimate in its place.
For scale: Dubai World Central handled roughly 2.2 million tonnes in 2024 and Liège about 1.3 million. RKT competes on none of that. It competes on the twenty minutes between the ramp and a free-zone warehouse, and on being a field where a call to the duty desk still reaches a person who can move a shipment.
Road feeder
Most UAE air freight moves by truck
Between the emirates, air freight is a road business. Consignments are flown into one field and trucked to another under bond, and the airport that wins the shipment is often the one closest to where the goods are made or stored.
Transshipment is the stated strategy
The airport's published commercial position is to increase transshipment freight through a road feeder network serving the rest of the emirates, rather than to chase belly capacity it does not have.
Bonded road feeder service
Bonded movement to and from the field is part of the published service list, arranged with your broker. Inter-airport trucking is offered directly by the freight centre.
Free trailer parking
Large trailers park free of charge at the freight centre. On a road-fed operation that is not a perk — it is the difference between a driver waiting on the apron road and a driver waiting at a dock.
The hinterland is the argument
Al Ghail, Al Hamra and Al Hulaila industrial zones sit in the same emirate as the runway. Manufacturing is roughly 30 % of the emirate's economy, and that freight has to leave somehow.
Carriers and lanes
Who lifts it
Belly capacity on the scheduled network plus a resident freighter operator. If your lane is not listed, the cargo desk will tell you honestly whether it can be flown or whether it should be trucked to a neighbouring field.
IndiGo
6ECargo alongside the scheduled passenger operation, including a Mumbai lane. Indian subcontinent capacity is the deepest part of the network here.
Fly Vaayu
A320P2FA dedicated freighter operator based at RKT, reported to hold a UAE air operator's certificate issued in October 2024 and to fly a converted A320-200P2F on regional, Indian and Vietnamese lanes.
The airport publishes neither a freighter timetable nor a list of forwarders operating on the field. Send the cargo desk your lane and your dates and it will confirm what capacity actually exists in that window.
Next
Working through the section
Capabilities and special cargo
Acceptance by commodity, screening, cold chain, dangerous goods, docks and storage — and what has not been published.
Customs and documentation
Import and export procedure in order, documents by commodity, restricted goods and the authorities behind each one.
RAKEZ and the free zones
The industrial hinterland, what free-zone status changes for a shipment, and how the freight reaches the field.
Booking and enquiry
Send the shipment detail to the cargo desk and get acceptance, capacity and rate back in writing.
Figures on this page come from the airport's own published material. Anything marked as not published has never been released in writing, and we would rather say so than guess. Ask the cargo desk and you will get a written answer for your specific shipment.