Air Cargo in the United Kingdom: Case Study and Analysis

Air cargo in the United Kingdom 1
Case study: Air Cargo in the United Kingdom
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Air cargo in the United Kingdom 2
Contents
Introduction....................................................................................................................................3
The fundamental reasons for success of the company...............................................................4
How can a company maintain its comparative advantage?.......................................................6
Could this be suitable for other companies, and if so explain why, if not explain why?.........8
Discuss the concept of sustainability and its relevance to the company featured in the case
study................................................................................................................................................8
Questions from the study case......................................................................................................9

Air cargo in the United Kingdom 3
Introduction
Lately, people are into importing and exporting cargo. This is stimulated using airplanes which is
one the most effective ways to transport large and heavy goods in the shortest time possible.
Despite that, people have forgone the fact that the charges are too high and still use it as their
major means of transport. This is subject to other means of transport available which include the
trains. Compared these two means, the airplane still stands to be the best way one can reach
individuals easily. One, the train is slow and not connected to the entire world as compared to
planes which have different destinations of the world. On the other hand, it would be convenient
for one to choose the train over the plane as they are able to carry bulky goods at large as
compared to what the plane does (Amaruchkul, Cooper & Gupta 2010, pp.155).
Over the years, the United Kingdom air cargo has played a very crucial role in the
modern-day chain supply. This has also contributed to the improvement of its economy. For
cargo airplanes, they can be either combined with passengers or others could be strictly cargo
planes. On many occasions, cargo is usually carried on the belly of the plane, which is
underneath the passengers’ cabin but for other crafts, it is carried on the deck sharing space with
the passengers while other planes are exclusively for carrying cargo (Aditjandra et al. 2016).
This means that the entire plane is meant for cargo. Also, while some of the cargo services would
prefer door-to-door services, others are cargo equivalent to the passengers. This explains the
difference in having planes that carry only cargo while those that carry both passengers and
cargo. In addition, there are specialist cargo airlines which accommodate aircraft which can carry
oversize cargo. They have huge volumes of cargo holds, and an example is the giant (Navarro,
Cronemy & Huge-Brodin 2014).

Air cargo in the United Kingdom 4
Air surface mode are linked together by airports. In Asia, there are many hubs with different
cargo tonnage that have increased trade around the region in the recent years. For instance,
Memphis and Louisville have really benefited from the United States partnership for the FedEx
and UPS respectively. For the United Kingdom airport network, in 2014, around 2.5 million tons
were handled in terms of mail and freights. However, this was significantly a small amount as
compared to the volume which passed through the United Kingdom’s ports which amounted to
up to 490 million tons (Amaruchkul, Cooper & Gupta 2010, pp.156). Despite that, the freight
was high-value goods with much density thus that accounted for around 40 percent of the exports
and imports. Jewelry, aerospace, pharmaceuticals and other medical equipment are among the
major export flows. This led to an increased number of people getting into the job industry. For
instance, 39000 jobs were created directly while 135300 were indirectly created with their
induced impacts also considered.
United Kingdom airfreight is evenly distributed with an inbound of around 52% and 48
percent outbound movements. This is in comparison to the maritime traders which has a very
deadly imbalance in imports. For long-distance movements, air transport is the most suitable
means of transport (Babić, Kuljanin & Kalić 2015, pp.3). Eighty percent of freight originates
from the European Union while the same has the same percentage of freights being its
destination. This contrasts the main volume, around 50 percent which is used for domestic
markets. For this, it is well illustrated how air transport has a range of uses while also its
challenges cannot be forgotten thus showing how competitive the industry is (Navarro, Cronemy
& Huge-Brodin 2017).