News / Maersk trials Bournemouth amid cargo boost for UK regional airports

The UK’s regional airports are getting a freight boost, with Maersk Air Cargo the latest carrier to launch flights to Bournemouth (BOH).

The move follows recent news that BOH-based European Cargo has increased its A340F frequencies from Chengdu to nine a week.

Maersk said this morning it would try a weekly service from Hangzhou Xiaoshan, in Zhejiang, on a 767-300F.

It operated to BOH from Billund (BLL) last Thursday and again yesterday. The aircraft returns to Billund, before operating into Navoi in Uzbekistan, Hangzhou and then back to Navoi and Billund.

Maersk is growing its freighter network between China, South-east Asia, Europe and the US. In March, it launched a service from Hangzhou to BLL and from Hangzhou to Chicago Rockford (RFD) in April.

The carrier seems confident of demand and is expecting to announce significant growth in its air product next year, according to a source. It is also operating nine frequencies a week, with Amerijet, from the US to Korea and China.

“Our customers are happy with the service and we are looking into stations adding commercial stops to the network,” said a spokesperson.

However, the flights to Korea have caused something of an upset among transport authorities, Korean Airlines is reportedly protecting its market tightly.

Meanwhile, Maersk said it would operate into Bournemouth until the end of the year, to meet peak demand, and would reconsider the situation then.

Gary Jeffreys, MD of Maersk Area UK & Ireland, said: “It’s fantastic to see Maersk Air Cargo landing in the UK. This represents our integrator strategy and demonstrates our product offering and capabilities across all modes of transport. Whether it be time-critical, capacity challenges or product launches, we have the capabilities to meet our customers’ demands.”

But it’s not just Bournemouth attracting freight traffic: Birmingham Airport (BHX) is part of Geodis’s air network, with Titan Airways, on its behalf, operating an A330-300F between BHX and Zhengzhou and Chengdu every couple of days; it also operates to London Stansted. There also appears to be a regular ATR-72F, operated by Swiss express specialist Zimex Aviation, from key European cities, including Frankfurt.

One forwarder noted that Temu and Shein, bitter ecommerce rivals, brought garments into BHX to be delivered to last-mile specialist Evri’s distribution centre in Rugby within 24 hours. He said: “It’s a good model.”

Metro Shipping, an independent forwarder in the Birmingham area, has long touted the advantages of BHX. It told customers this month the airport was a “global gateway for the  Midlands, [which] has been further underlined by critical ground-handling investments and pending China freighter services”. It also noted flights from Emirates, Saudia and Qatar Airways.