While airports throughout the UK have seen aircraft movements fall by at least 60% following the COVID-19 crisis, East Midlands Airport (EMA) has revealed that it continues to operate 60% of its scheduled flights. The difference being its flights are filled with products rather than people. Cargo operations at the airport are up 7.4% as a result of the need to transport medical equipment and online orders. The airport’s central location (it’s a four-hour truck drive to 90% of the population in England and Wales) means vital supplies flown into or out of the UK can be transported on in an efficient and timely manner.
Bev Fawdington Director of Uvamed, a Loughborough-based manufacturer of medical equipment, commented:
It’s really important for us to have the airport on our doorstep. The fact that it is so geared up to supporting businesses like ours with the exporting of goods is hugely beneficial, no more so than at the current time. Our products, which are in demand from hospitals all over the world, can be collected at lunchtime by a courier and be at the hospital overseas by lunchtime the next day.
In the week following the UK Government’s announcement about stricter social distancing measures (16 March), cargo aircraft movements increased by 10% at the East Midlands hub. In the two weeks since then (up to 29 March) the airport has noted an increase in cargo aircraft movements of 7.4% a day.
In addition to the urgent need for more medical and PPE equipment including face masks, the growth in cargo operations has been driven by ad-hoc flights as EMA takes on additional capacity from other airports that are now closed at night, together with a reduction in long-haul passenger flights from other UK airports which would normally carry urgent cargo alongside passenger luggage. A spike in online shopping as due to an increase in people now adhering to social distancing measures as well as increased operations by well-established carriers that have the infrastructure and broader international network supply chains in place at EMA has also contributed to the the growth in cargo operations.
Air traffic statistics published by Eurocontrol show that EMA has seen the smallest drop in flight numbers of any major airport in Europe over the last week. It’s followed by Bergen, Stavanger and Cologne.
More than £200m has been invested by some of the world’s largest logistics companies into bespoke handling facilities at the airport over the last two years. Employees at the airport, alongside logistics giants DHL, UPS, FedEx and Royal Mail have been designated as key workers so are working round the clock handling 1,000 tonnes a day between them, to ensure next-day-deliveries many of which are essential items for hospitals, shops and people isolated at home.
“East Midlands is providing around the clock support to fight back against COVID-19,” said Karen Smart, East Midlands Airports Managing Director. “It is at times like these when EMA really demonstrates its national value and shows how important airfreight is to keeping Britain moving. The airport is a vital lifeline for businesses that need to get products to market quickly, the NHS frontline, and those R&D companies that are working flat out to develop new medicines which can help combat crippling viruses such as COVID-19,” she concluded.
