‘Prioritise’ service caters for freight of any size or weight

BAWC officially launches new time-sensitive product in SA
JOY ORLEK
LAST WEEK’S official launch in South Africa of British Airways World Cargo’s Prioritise service for time-sensitive freight represents the culmination of a change programme set in motion by the airline ten years ago and involving an investment of £500m into network infrastructure. “It’s the final piece in the jigsaw,” general manager London operations, Mark Gardiner, told FTW in Johannesburg last week. Prioritise provides a single cut-off time of 90 minutes for small and large freight, and as the name implies, offers priority access to available capacity at every stage of the journey, with a 50% refund if cargo doesn’t fly as booked. The airline has invested £15m in Premia, its new premium facility at London Heathrow, which is specifically designed to handle time-sensitive cargo. In a market where rising oil prices and growing competition are placing increasing pressure on yields, value added services play a key role in market differentiation. And this is central to the BAWC change plan. Its highly automated general handling facility kicked off the programme. This was followed by the Perishable Handling Centre, which fast tracks perishable produce to the production line and gets it ready for the supermarkets. The Premia facility, which was launched on September 4, fills the final gap in its added value product portfolio. Area manager commercial for Africa, Patrick Fehring, has already found a very receptive audience in South Africa for the express product. “We did not previously cater for anything more than 32 kilograms in the express sector. This opens up a lot of new opportunities. “We are currently exploring the constant climate option for local shippers, and believe the pharmaceutical market could be a strong contender.” Gardiner sees the latest development as “the end of the beginning in terms of putting our infrastructure in place in London. “We’ve spent a lot of time training up our sales team around the world and believe that BAWC is now poised to leverage its infrastructure and drive the business forward.”