Bournemouth Airport builds cargo ops, infrastructure with multi-million-pound investment

Bournemouth Airport (BOH) in the U.K. plans to continue bolstering its Cargo First cargo handling service with a multi-million-pound investment to build additional cargo infrastructure at the airport to accommodate growing volumes.

Cargo First, which launched in April, organizes trucking and distribution among other services, in addition to traditional cargo handling, Stephen Gill, managing director at BOH, told Air Cargo World.

“Being a smaller regional airport, we’ve set everything up in-house, whether it’s day-to-day passenger operations, security, handling [or] fueling,” Gill said. “A lot of the client base still want to pick up their goods in London … so we’re able to offer that service as well. We can land the aircraft, handle the goods, get it through the transit shed, and if the client is looking for it, we can organize the trucking and the distribution center up in the Heathrow area.”

With no local highway congestion around BOH, there are little to no delays in terms of trucking services, said Aviation and Cargo Development Manager Rob Johnson. Johnson said it takes roughly 90 minutes of road time to transport cargo from BOH to Heathrow (LHR).

“We’ve actually proved that you can land your cargo into BOH and get it to a warehouse at LHR in approximately half the time that it would take if you landed that same aircraft at LHR itself,” Johnson said. “At LHR, you typically can have trucks waiting numerous hours just to get from the air side environment to land side, so a lot of freight forwarders have already realized that there’s a significant potential time saving here.”
Infrastructure investments
A multi-million-pound investment project is also in progress, Gill said. The investment will go toward additional infrastructure, including apron space for cargo handling, transit sheds for facilitating cargo from landside to airside and equipment.

The airport is also able to build up to around 1 million square feet of logistics space, whether on-airport or next to the airport, he added. While there is currently no fixed plan in place for the design of the buildings, Gill noted that it will be developed to “suit the needs of the end tenant.” Logistics organizations interested in operating additional space are in discussion with BOH, Gill said. He further noted that BOH is also planning to build a 40,000-square-foot unit soon.

“Most of our focus [and] most of our activities [are] with large aircraft flying large distances at the moment, and that’s typically reactive to the market conditions right now,” Johnson said. “However, some of the other key clients, for example, the European express logistics firms, have a longer timeframe for planning. So, we want to make sure that we still retain the ability to handle smaller aircraft that might operate more frequently … [which is] why we’re talking about a range of different kinds of building shapes and sizes to cater for lots of different types of aircraft.”
Regional market needs
While cargo operations at BOH started with the distribution of COVID-19 testing kits and personal protective equipment (PPE) in 2020, the airport has progressively moved forward into commercial cargo, Johnson said. BOH has been tapping into demand for high-value consumer goods manufactured in the U.K. that are then transferred westbound to destinations like New York.

“There seems to be a lot of opportunity in demand for inbound goods from China,” Gill said. “We have several conversations ongoing at the moment, which I would hope would turn into flows from China sooner rather than later, primarily around e-commerce and fast fashion, and that seems to be where the real growth is going to come from in the short term.”

Cargo throughput at BOH has grown significantly since April 2020, when the airport had virtually no cargo operations, to nearly 20,000 tonnes of cargo in March.

Around 12 cargo carriers operate at BOH, including Air Atlanta, Cargojet and BOH-based European Cargo Limited (ECL), Gill said. ECL operates a fleet of six A340 aircraft available in cargo configuration and operates regular freight runs for U.K. commercial exports to the U.S., Africa and the UAE, among other destinations.

In February ECL secured an equity investment from Priority 1 Logistics Holdings, a subsidiary of U.S.-based Priority 1 Holdings, and intends to use the funds to grow its aircraft fleet for cargo operations, according to a release. The carrier plans to modify its aircraft for cargo use and receive eight to 10 additional aircraft, which will likely also be A340s, Gill noted.

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