Rob Johnson, Business Development Manager, considers the ‘Bournemouth difference’

The past two years since we introduced the ‘Cargo First’ brand have been something of a whirlwind! 

Thankfully, we weren’t starting from zero – prior to that we’d handled up to 20,000 tonnes annually of medical goods during the pandemic period.  This meant we’d already had the opportunity to gain experience and grow a team capable of handling multiple daily widebody cargo aircraft movements. 

The difference in the last 24 months has been the fact that we’ve essentially grown, from scratch, a sustainable commercial airfreight operation.  This alongside what has been recognised as one of the UK’s fastest recovering passenger airport operations (soon to break through the magic million annual throughput figure!).

Obviously, Europe has been at the forefront of a retail revolution during that time too.  The Covid-era growth in online shopping which looked like it might naturally plateau as pandemic restrictions eased turned out to be merely the tip of the iceberg.  The UK has quickly accelerated to becoming Europe’s #1 e-commerce market (incidentally, over twice as big as #2 market, France). 

With each of the ‘big four’ Chinese e-commerce players - Temu, Shein, TikTok and Alibaba/AliExpress - all now established in this country, volumes are expected to continue to grow strongly.

We’ve been fortunate in having a reactive and nimble team, and an equally forward-thinking and agile based carrier – European Cargo – with big volume, long-haul aircraft at its disposal.  From that base, we’ve worked hard to generate a reputation as a genuinely viable alternative UK entry point for customers seeking to avoid the congested London hub airports.

It’s really heartening, therefore, to hear client feedback that Bournemouth isn’t just an alternative place to handle an aircraft.  Our ‘faster airfreight’ service proposition is also giving them a quicker overall logistics chain right through from aircraft touchdown to delivery to their distribution centre and onwards to the individual end customer’s address.

Consistently achieving, and wherever possible exceeding, that end customer’s expectations is the real objective here.  Aside from price, it’s the only other USP that really matters.  At Bournemouth, with a highly efficient operating model, we strive to do both.

Perhaps it’s time you discovered how we can help your business gain an unfair advantage in a highly competitive market?

Cargo First – Bournemouth Airport.  Welcome to faster airfreight.