Airports are under the whip as demand continues to exceed capacity and Covid-safe work practices and apparent labour shortages continue to place immense pressure on UK, European, US and global air freight hubs, creating congestion from Heathrow to Azerbaijan.
That’s according to UK-based logistics provider Metro Shipping which points out that while there are different situations at different airports, the demand for air cargo is exceptionally high. “In addition, ground-handling operations are proving to be consistently ineffective at servicing the upturn in freighters, and passenger freighters, with particular problems at Heathrow, Amsterdam, Brussels, Frankfurt and Liege. And that’s just in Europe.”
Metro believes that despite the congestion, the already exceptionally high airfreight prices will climb further as supply chain disruptions force ocean freight shippers to switch to airfreight.
“‘Distressed ocean freight has one repair option on the deep-sea destinations and origins - and that is conversion to airfreight, which we are seeing daily, driven by consumer and manufacturing demand chains needing stock, inventory and components to function.”
London Heathrow, the company says, is facing significant delays, as the cargo area is unable to cope and waiting times for vehicle collections and deliveries can be anything from five to ten hours, with the ever-present risk that the driver will ultimately be turned away. “We are experiencing drivers running out of their legal hours of driving and having to be replaced with new shift drivers before they have even collected or delivered their airfreight cargo whilst sitting statically outside the airline warehouses at the airports.”
The issue is however endemic - US, European and Asian hubs are experiencing the same problems. And Metro believes it’s unlikely to improve any time soon.
Predictions are that the air cargo boom will continue well into next year, and possibly 2023, as it may take that amount of time for the passenger schedule to return to pre-Covid levels.