32


NORTH EAST FEATURE From North East to Middle East


the other main freight user of the airport is Fedex, which runs a nightly Embraer 120 to and from its Paris hub. Newcastle fills a gap in Fedex’s UK network and the air link makes early morning deliveries to Newcastle possible – Fedex’s other UK hubs are a good 2-3 hours away by road. “It gives Fedex a unique selling point in the North-east,” Sanders explains.


Most airports, when they move into the long-haul sector start with a transatlantic flight and then add another to the Middle East or perhaps Asia. For Newcastle, it


is the other


way round. Emirates arrived on the scene in 2007 with a service to its Dubai hub and now the airport is looking to add a North American service as its second intercontinental destination. Aviation development director Chris Sanders says: “A US service would be a big benefit, even


if it was a 757 with limited capacity, and we have a strong aspiration for such a service.” There is a significant amount of pharmaceutical manufacturing industry in the North-east, which would probably be the main traffic across the Pond, so a limited capacity aircraft would not be a problem.


Emirates, meanwhile, has transformed the flown freight figures in Newcastle. The widebody A330-200 operates daily to Dubai, and Newcastle’s


traffic has surged from under 300 tonnes in 2007 to 4,300t in 2010. And with passenger loadings on the aircraft averaging 82%, there is a strong possibility that a 777- 300 could be substituted, which would certainly give the local freight community something to


think about. As well as


pharmaceuticals, engineering parts are the main traffic to Dubai and other points on the Emirates network.


Leaving aside airfreight trucking and ad hoc charters,


Newcastle Airport’s physical freight infrastructure is relatively modest, but well up to the task – in fact, there is currently some spare capacity in the two combined warehouse-cum-office blocks. A dedicated cargo apron opened about three years ago, and is used mainly by mail flights. The


only other ‘cargo’ at


Newcastle uses an altogether different facility – the executive jet terminal. The Freeman Hospital is one of the country’s leading centres for heart and kidney transplants and urgent organs are frequently flown up to the north east on dedicated small aircraft.


PD Ports welcomed the launch of a third weekly BG FreightLine shortsea shipping service into Teesport. It


will provide a link with


Antwerp as well as Rotterdam and will complement the two existing weekly services between Rotterdam and Teesport.


Frans Calje, managing director unitised, PD Ports, said: “This is a growing market and the need for another service is both a vote of


confidence in PD Ports to


handle the additional traffic and in the north-east as a place to do business.” He added that the port now handles around 20 vessels a week compared with the four or


ISSUE 3 2011


Port welcomes Antwerp connection


five a week just a few years ago. BG Freight, part of the Peel Ports Group, established a weekly service between Teesport and Rotterdam in April 2009 and added a second service in March 2010. Koert Luitwieler, BG Freight CEO commented: “We continue to see demand for services into Teesport rise and so decided to launch a third weekly service. The link to Antwerp opens up a new market for us on this route and we are confident we will attract a lot of cargo from there.”


The specially fitted vessels can


offer space for 45ft long 2.55 wide high cube containers as well as any length tank or bulk container.


Union member


Freight forwarding company Union Transport (Newcastle) has been selected as the exclusive representative in the city for the Conqueror Freight Network. Conqueror, which began accepting applications last September and launched operations in January, is choosing one strong forwarder to act as a “virtual branch” in each of 564 cities in 127 countries. The network is now seeking other qualified members in the UK.


Group 180h x 267w.indd 1


19/05/2011 17:12


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