Birmingham: Airport Cargo Operations

[Ray Finkle]

We then sat on our hands and waited for Airlines to come to us. BIG MISTAKE! We should have then sorted out the runway issues and got the extension in place and trawled the Airlines to entice them into coming into BHX.

Sadly I'm not convinced lessons have been learned.

 

[Ray Finkle]

I heard a rumour today that during the run up to Christmas the Swiftair E120 flight may be upgraded to an ATR and the FedEx 757 may be upgraded to an A300. Like I said it is only a rumour, just wondered if anyone else had heard anything similar?

 

[User0001]

According to agents at MAN (where the B757 originates) have been told it could be either A300 or MD11 operating towards Christmas.

 

[Ray Finkle]

Browsing FR24 I've noticed that since the runway night closures came into operation the Swiftair feeder flight is going direct to CDG from Belfast, I wonder if that will affect the rumoured FedEx A300/MD11 upgrade?

 

[Ray Finkle]

It's been reported on another forum that Coventry are reducing their opening hours to 08:00 until 18:00, as a result their freight flights will be moving to Birmingham as of September.

 

[Brummiegem]

While at work last week I was told of a rumour that BHX was to get some extra freight flights.Although I was told it was a temporary thing.I wonder if the 2 stories are linked.
I wonder if CL44 could help out with this one.
Also If true,I wonder what the long term plan for CVT is.It would be a shame if it closed.
My first ever flight was from there in one of Air Atlantiques' C47 Dakotas.Now that was an experience I will never forget👍

 

[Kevin Farnell]

I believe that its due to EMA having night closures, for runway work.

Kevin

 

[hammerb32]

Really strange that we don't see more cargo from BHX, given the amount of industry in the city region it's such a shame most of the cargo goes in and out of MAN and EMA.

 

[IanFarquharson]

UPS will move to BHX whilst EMA is being repaired this Winter.
The Coventry ATR & Sh360 may be coming.
There are other things also in the pipeline

 

[BHXsupporter]

Thanks!! Yet another tasty, undefined morsel to brood on!

 

[User001]

I thought the EMA closures had been moved to the weekend so it didn't have a widespread affect on cargo operations?

 

[Brum X]

I really hope this stays just a rumour. Cargo uplift will take a real hit if this comes true. As good as the A380 is for passengers it will be a really big drop in cargo capacity to have 2 of these beasts coming into BHX. I know we have managed to get big shipments out on these flights before (but we always had the back up of the flying warehouse AKA B773) so with the morning flight gone and the second flight changing over I would hope that there are plans in place for extra capacity to come in for the excess cargo!!! As mentioned before they only have a certain amount of freighters and their schedule is normally set pretty far in advance so unless there is an order for extra frames out there (which I cannot recall seeing) then there may be a big dip in cargo revenues coming!

Do you have cargo dealings with Qatar too or just Emirates. If they upgraded to an A330 from 787, would that help ?

 

[CL44]

Do you have cargo dealings with Qatar too or just Emirates. If they upgraded to an A330 from 787, would that help ?

I do as it happens. The 787 is a much better option for cargo than the 330. More space and better combination of pallets / uld's and with a lower passenger number more space for cargo. So long as there are no backlogs in Doha it is not a bad option. Only drawback is certain routes are narrow body for onwards destinations.

 

[TM3]

Cargo wise is are there any hot spots where lots of cargo goes to through Emirates?

 

[CL44]

Believe it or not, anywhere that EK fly to is a cargo hot spot! Certain destinations (Africa & India) are very heavy on excess baggage which has an impact on availability for cargo but with the number of flights going (especially to the Indian sub-continent) we can normally still manage to obtain space. The main advantage that EK have over other members of the big ME3 is that all of their services are wide body, whereas some destinations on the competitors are only narrow body (which is fine for self loading cargo but now so good for those involved in freight).

 

[TM3]

Thanks. So do other widebody services, like Air India for example, see good cargo?

 

[CL44]

Now that I do now know. Honest answer to you is this. Unless you are involved with the Airline or their handling agent you will find it very difficult to find out exact information regarding loads carried. Now I will not divulge any figures (either on open forum or PM so please do not ask me to) for two very good reasons. No 1 I don't know them, and No 2 I quite happen to like my job (strange I know but there you go). Information like this is a close hold commodity for any Airline (especially if there is competition flying out from the same Airport). What I will say is this, it would be unusual for an Airline to keep a service up and running unless they were making money out of it. If I remember correctly AI had 2 International routes which were consistently making money and BHX was one of them! I don't know if it was PAX or Cargo keeping the flight in profit but it comes in each night and goes out again (normally) the same night. For an Airline to put a 787 on a route such as BHX must mean the aircraft hits the sweet spot for loads carried which turns into money. Probably why QR started the flight on a 787 if you think about it.

However this thread is about EK and so if you want to ask these questions about cargo please use the Cargo thread that is available (although I won't be able to quote figures there either)!

Please also note that (whilst uncommon) it is not unheard of for Airlines to keep an eye on these boards just to make sure that their brand is not being slandered or to ensure that proprietary information is not being passed around. Please bear this in mind when asking questions because you never know who is behind each user name.

 

[TM3]

Sorry, I wasn't fishing for any confidential info there, it's just the way you put it made it sound like there is a lot of unserved demand for cargo out of BHX due to a lack of widebody services.

Not to go too far off topic, given the importance of manufacturing to the region it wouldn't be that surprising if there was a certain amount of international cargo demand.

 

[CL44]

On the contrary we have the services (and yes I would like to see other Airlines bringing their services into BHX as well) it is just the fact now that we have to use them, both as PAX and for Cargo to ensure the Airlines keep the services coming into BHX (and also to try and attract more of them. There is a very good reason US / AA stopped their flights into BHX (US after only one season) and that is that people were not using them enough. This though is drifting again into a more general thread and I think that is where it should be.

Moderators if we can swap this last couple of posts over to one of the other threads which may be a more suitable venue for this line of thinking that would be very much appreciated. Lets leave this thread to Emirates only.

 

[Ray Finkle]

An article about the recent EK Sky Cargo flights for JLR, it includes a couple of nice pictures at the bottom 🙂

http://www.skycargo.com/media-centr...aguar-land-rover-cars-from-birmingham-airport

Picture from the article above.