News / US-Europe airport partnership eyes multi-commodity cargo growth

However, through a recently announced partnership with German counterpart Frankfurt Hahn (HHN), it is looking to diversify into other verticals for both imports and exports.

“Over the years, the automotive sector has been a major driver of shipments between our two regions, and continues to be a major component of our total air cargo volume,” Tom Tyra, GSP’s vice-president and chief marketing  and communications officer, told The Loadstar.

“GSP is interested in growing this business and adding flights between the airport and HHN. However, the point of this partnership is to encourage shipments of a wide variety of commodities in addition to automotive.” 

 Mr Tyra said there was scope to grow aerospace, perishables, oversized cargo and e-commerce.

“Our regions (South Carolina and Germany) are both strategically located in vibrant geographical markets; we offer 24-hour operations and each has uncongested facilities that provide customers with speed to market. 

“We think there are ample opportunities to encourage the growth of new and existing business. GSP will continue to be focused on supporting our automotive clients, but we think we serve them best by creating a vibrant and diverse marketplace where airlines, forwarders, and shippers all prosper.” 

There are currently three to four scheduled weekly flights from GSP to Europe and two weekly scheduled flights to South America and Asia, along with numerous ad hoc charter operations supporting various commodities, using a wide range of aircraft types from Falcon 20s to Antonov 124s, he explained.

 “To ensure flights are profitable in both directions, we need to increase imports and exports. We also see potential in GSP serving as a transit point between North and South America to Europe and on to the the Middle East and  Asia. We think HHN is positioned to offer similar capabilities.

“This trade flow opens up myriad commodities that can be transported via aircraft, including perishables, pharma, aerospace, medical equipment, specialty cargo, live animals, and more.”

Mr Tyra continued: “And this can be done with a ‘personalised’ service for customers that can only happen at more convenient secondary airports like GSP and HHN.” 

Hahn’s CEO, Ruediger Franke, agreed GSP and HHN had many parallels, for example, 24-hour operating permits and working with the same airlines.

“Both airports believe establishing a formal relationship is mutually beneficial; GSP and HHN as well as our respective regions will benefit from working together, it’s a perfect fit. Their core business is importing air freight, but they also want to boost exports, eying supply chains linking our two airports. We are engaged in very good and close dialogue with GSP. The next steps will now involve tackling joint projects in concrete terms.”

As to whether there been any drop-off in GSP’s automotive cargo shipments since US import tariffs were increased to 15%, Mr Tyra said: “We have not seen a significant change. Flights linking GSP to Europe, South America and Asia also carry other commodities, so import/export demand has continued, which likely offsets any decline shippers and freight forwarders may be seeing in autos and parts. However, we have no insight into the volume of specific commodities on each aircraft, and if this has changed.” 

GSP’s annual air cargo traffic is approximately 60,000 tonnes, heavily weighted towards the automotive vertical. 

As for growth targets, the airport “is taking a conservative approach to growing our air cargo business and expect an annual growth rate of 5% to be achievable,” Mr Tyra said.

At Hahne, Mr Franke said: “Our cargo business has been developing well so far this year; from January to July the airport handled 59,310 tonnes, which is 2.5% more than in the same period last year.” 

This further consolidates the airport’s recovery after its previous operator filed for insolvency in 2021.