Stansted and East Midlands report cargo growth

LONDON - An increasing reliance of private households and businesses on ecommerce during the pandemic, coupled with a reduction in passenger flights, has driven significant growth in air cargo at the Manchester Airports Group (MAG) owned East Midlands and London Stansted airports over the summer period.

The current climate has turbo-charged the shift to online shopping, the impact of which is been felt at both London Stansted and East Midlands Airports (EMA). Earlier in the year, figures from the Office for National Statistics showed that the proportion of UK shopping carried out online rose from 19% in February to almost 33% in April as lockdown restrictions took hold.

"Over the summer months, traditionally the quieter time of year for air cargo, volumes at both EMA, home to the UK’s largest dedicated air cargo operation, and London Stansted were significantly up on the same time last year," MAG said. "In July and August, EMA saw an increase of 21.2% and 18.5% respectively, while volumes at London Stansted increased by 43.6% and 25% in the same period."

Lack of belly capacity

The shift towards dedicated air cargo operations is also being driven by a lack of traditional belly-hold operations, where goods are transported in the baggage hold of passenger aircraft. With many airlines scaling back long-haul passenger operations in recent months, the availability of belly-hold capacity has reduced significantly to key markets, especially on popular routes to the US.

"For example, during June, July and August there has been an average of 60 additional cargo flights to and from East Midlands Airport and the US and, most notably, a 120% increase in the volume of goods travelling between EMA and JFK airport in New York," MAG said. "In addition, there are extra weekly flights between London Stansted and the US.