Ajot: Greenville-Spartanburg and Frankfurt-Hahn team up on cargo

Greenville-Spartanburg Airport (GSP) is looking to a recently-announced partnership agreement with Frankfurt-Hahn Airport (HHN) in Germany, to give fresh impetus to its air cargo business.

A fast-developing passenger airport, GSP has been the recipient of the Airport Council International’s Airport Service Quality (ASQ) awards on a number of occasions, including ‘Best Airport of 2-5 million Passengers in North America’.It currently serves around 25 major US cities on a scheduled basis with a program of 125 flights daily.

‘Airbridge’ for automotive shipments

However, what often goes ignored, is that GSP is a well-established ‘airbridge’ for automotive-related cargo between the southeast U.S. and Europe.

“The automotive sector has been a major driver of shipments between our two regions over the years and continues to account for an important part of our total air cargo volume,” GSP’s vice-president and chief marketing and communications officer, Tom Tyra, told AJOT in an interview.

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

Diversifying into other verticals

Tyra said GSP was looking to grow its share of aerospace, perishables, oversized cargo as well as e-commerce.

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

“We think that 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.”

Developing import and export traffic

There are currently 3-4 scheduled weekly cargo flights from GSP to Europe and two weekly scheduled flights to both 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 124, Tyra explained.

“To ensure that 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 Middle East and Asia. We think HHN is positioned to offer similar capabilities. This trade flow opens up a myriad of commodities that can be transported via aircraft, including perishables, pharma, aerospace, medical equipment, specialty cargo, live animals, and more.”

Tyra continued: “GSP and HHN can benefit from imports, exports, and transit business and our regional customers can benefit from having a wide range of destinations and shipping options. And this can be done with personalized service that can only happen at more convenient secondary airports like GSP and HHN.

GSP’s annual air cargo traffic is approximately 60,000 tonnes, heavily weighted towards the automotive vertical. It considers an annual growth rate (in traffic) of 5% to be attainable.

US tariffs and autos

Quizzed on whether there has been any decline in GSP’s automotive cargo shipments since US import tariffs were increased to 15%, he said:

“We have not seen a significant change in schedules since they (the tariffs) came into effect. Flights linking GSP to Europe, South America and Asia also carry other commodities so import/export demand has continued, which likely offsets any decline (if any) 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.”

‘Convenient, congestion-free alternative’

Highlighting GSP’s cargo strategy and how, as a small US airport, it can compete against much bigger domestic rivals, Tyra pointed to operating efficiencies which offer shorter aircraft taxi times and reduced truck idling and wait times, reducing the overall CO2 footprint.

“For inbound shipments, we want to be our customers’ preferred entry point to access the southeast US, and our location also allows them to easily reach much of the US.”

GSP can also serve as a transit hub for shipments to/from Canada, Mexico and South America, he noted.

“For regional shipments, forwarders and shippers have many options to choose from. There are several passenger hub airports in the southeast US that offer a significant share of belly capacity.

“Our vision is to offer a convenient, congestion-free alternative to traditional gateways that delivers value and speed to market for our customers. We think our facilities, location, ample room for expansion, and costs position us as an attractive alternative to the delays and congestion that are often found at larger airports in the southeast,” Tyra added.

‘A perfect fit’

Returning to the partnership agreement with Frankfurt-Hahn, the German airport’s CEO, Ruediger Franke, told AJOT that GSP and HHN have many parallels – for example, 24-hour operating permits and working with the same airlines.

“Both airports believe that 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 now 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.”