Originally Posted by
Suzeman
I have already said that I have no evidence either way; you have come out with your opinion and I am now asking you to justify it.
And the shareholders will be more worried with the financial situation of the Group rather than a decrease of flown freight through Manchester. I have already explained to you that the flown freight figure does not reflect what is actually going on at the site; I do not understand your fixation with this.
Surely one of the key changes in the air cargo industry is the rise, and rise of the integrators - UPS, FedEx, TNT, DHL being the principal players. They offer a door to door service principally, but by no mean exclusively, for the smaller shipment sector that, before their dominance, used to phone the freight forwarder, who called the airline (or used their ABC / OAG) to get a rate, picked the shipment up, documented it then delivered it to the airline who flew it to destination, where another agent cleared it through customs and handed it to the delivery company to get ti to the customer. What a faff! How did anything move, with any speed and at a reasonable price? Answer, it did because a lot of different organisations worked hard to make sure it would, but the cost was hardly cheap.
The integrators like centralisation, so Stansted has been the destination of choice for for London and the Southeast, and for the rest of the UK the hub is EMA, with flights feeding into there from Scotland and Ireland, and from the other principal hubs such as Leipzig and Köln on the European mainland.
It is that, as much as anything else, that has seen a steady decline in all cargo services through the likes of Manchester, and for that matter, Gatwick.