SECONDARY
HUBS
Second
best?
There’s more to the cargo chain than main hubs, as David Smith discovers.
The rise of secondary hubs has become a powerful, worldwide
trend. Whilst major hubs have been totally dominant for
decades, they are now becoming the victims of their own
success. They lack the space to expand their facilities and they are
burdened with over-congestion and slot constraints. The fastestgrowing
secondary hubs tend to have room to build state-of-the-art
warehouses and can guarantee slot times. In many cases, they offer
the logistical advantages of a desirable geographical location. No
wonder the giants of e-commerce, such as Alibaba and Amazon,
favour secondary hubs.
The case for the secondary facility today
Markus Muecke, Global Head of Air Freight Procurement for
global forwarder Panalpina, believes in a long term, sustainable
future for secondary and specialised airports focusing on handling
freighters. He points to Brussels and Leipzig in Europe, Memphis
and Louisville in the US and Zhengzhou in China as successful
examples. Everywhere from South America to China, secondary
hubs are emerging as important players.
“The major hubs won’t admit it because they don’t want to
put off potential clients, but they have huge space issues, which is
feeding the growth of the secondary hubs,” he explains.
“They provide shippers and forwarders with greater flexibility
in logistics and a lot of the fleets have upgraded to the A350s and
A380s and Boeing 787s, which provide more space for cargo. The
key question for shippers is that of how long a truck has to wait
geographical position, advanced
warehousing and a high degree
of punctuality. Helsinki’s
overall growth has been an
exceptional 140% since 2009,
according to the 2019 report of
Airports Council International.
Meanwhile, the operations of
Finnair Cargo, which is based at
Helsinki, have increased in line
with capacity additions. Cargo
revenue rose by 4.7% last year
to €206.9m. Asia contributed
€155.7m, the North Atlantic
€12m and Europe €32.4m. This
followed on from a recordbreaking
year in 2017 that saw
Finnair Cargo’s revenue grow
by 13.5%.
Helsinki’s most considerable
asset is its unique northern
location, which provides the
fastest connections for air traffic
between Asia and Europe.
“The geographical advantage
is the cornerstone for Helsinki’s
before it can load and offload.
When the major hubs are so
congested, it can take a long
time – and the truckers are
never sure when they will be
able to travel.”
In Europe, last year’s annual
cargo traffic figures showed
how the big four air hubs,
namely Paris Charles de Gaulle,
Amsterdam Schiphol, London
Heathrow and Frankfurt,
all flatlined, or faced small
declines. Meanwhile, the top
secondary hubs were on the
rise, which meant a 7% growth
for Leipzig, 21% for the cargoonly
Liège, 6% for Brussels and
15% for Budapest.
Right airport, right place
Helsinki airport, in Finland,
embodies many of the
advantages of the smaller
hubs, including space to
expand, an advantageous
10 August 2019 www.airlogisticsinternational.com
/www.airlogisticsinternational.com