Cargo
 

Has there been a sudden upsurge in the air freight business recently? Watching the Kalitta Air flight at Heathrow recently piqued my curiosity. I had never previously noticed a cargo flight to Cincinnati. A day or two later, DHL flew Heathrow to Cincinnati and today I discovered that BA flew 2 of their 777s to San Francisco as pure cargo flights on March 23rd. The next day, they sent another 3 cargo only flights again to San Francisco, followed on March 25th by 2 more. Not only that, they used one of their brand new A321NEO to operate a cargo only flight to Frankfurt and a 787-9 to do the same to Delhi. Where did all this cargo suddenly come from?

The cargo has always been there; it's the massive belly cargo space available on all pax flights all over the world, that has almost completely gone overnight.

DIBO: Yes, I understand that but they seem to have been flying passenger flights in addition. The cargo flights I was referring to even had different flight numbers to the usual pax flights.

I noticed to day looking at Flight radar 24 the number of Fedex flights over south of England.

On a side note there was also a lot of exec jets!

DIBO: I had another look at past flights and it seems the regular passenger flights were cancelled on the affected days so you were obviously right! Thanks.

Virgin operated there first ever cargo only flight, LHR to JFK on the 22nd March (medical supplies) with more to come this week.

Wonder what would be on the return flight?!

Why are we exporting medical supplies, I would have thought they were required here at the moment?
David

My guess is they would have originated in Asia with a final destination of the USA.
Virgin Cargo has a problem that the majority of its pax flights have been cancelled, so then have a logistical problem of getting any cargo they have to there final destination.
Many airlines around the world are now flying passenger aircraft with only cargo on them, some are not only using the lower holds but securing cargo in the cabin to the seats.

I had wondered over the last weeks if it were legal to use the passenger cabin for transporting goods, or in these strange times are air-laws 'bent' to accommodate the needs of society ?

For the OP. Cincinnati (CVG) is the main US hub for DHL. DHLAir uk has been operating daily, sometimes more, to JFKand CVG since Sep 2009. Usually from EMA, LEJ, BRU.

Cargo has always been there, but it’s not always obvious - the massive growth area in the last 20 years. Kalitta is one of many big contractors operating on behalf of DHL.

Usually I neither know nor care what’s down the back. A 767 will carry 55T, which is a lot of parcels from a lot of customers. Maybe filter on DHK on FR24.

HtH,

dh

It was the DHL going from Heathrow rather than any of the other hubs that intrigued me. Usually at Heathrow you see DHL traffic to and from Germany only.

Oh I see. Welcome to the flexible world of Network Control! I have long since stopped being surprised by how rapidly changes happen in the land of logistics.

DHL have been increasing their operations to help shift more cargo across the Atlantic...
A copy from an announcement on OAG Inforwarding the other day

Though, for reasons I've never been able to work out, for the last 3 years there has been a one-off LHR-CVG flight (DHK390) on both Christmas Day and New Year's Day. I'd be fascinated to know why.

If I remember rightly, the Channex B737 on the Royal Mail flights had the mail bags in the main cabin

Except for one (GCELW) the aircraft used by J2 for night freight were QC freighters. The seats were taken out in the evening and replaced for passenger flying in the morning. They had roller floors and used freight containers which were lower than normal to fit under the overhead lockers which remained in place during the role change.
the only loose mail bags were loaded in the belly holds if required. LW was a pure freighter which used standard containers.

Dave Reid. I can’t answer your question I’m afraid other than to reiterate some comments above about how no one really knows how Network make their decisions!

I’m more fascinated at the detail of your interest in our operation! But you are very welcome.

mme. Yes, more transatlantic to do. The a330 will be EAT, 777 aerologic, 747 prob kalitta but could be Atlas or Global and the 767s DHK.

I stand corrected!, didn't realise they were all QCs/Freighters, suppose not obvious at the other end of the radio!

On this topic - loosely - what’s happened to FedEx’s CDG hub tonight? The 767 turned around at Stansted and going back to Dublin and none of the feeders have run this evening?