fun2fly wrote:On the air cargo front, yes a few trucks a day go to EWR. As well to ORD. Both gateways generally add two days to air cargo transit times due to trucking and scanning prior to loading. Many wise shippers have found Rickenbacker to be a good alternative. You can get the cargo there and be on a plane same day. If CLE had one flight to add cargo to, it would do very well just offering the same fares at NYC/CHI gateways as it would save 1-2 days for the shipper which is the whole point of air cargo. I don't know the economics of the belly of a plane for sure, but if the a.net myth of "the belly would pay for that flight" is true, then I think it would be a very good move for someone especially with the CLE air cargo growth noted by Massey several times in this thread.
Let's hope for some good news from the conference.
I can't prove that air cargo in CLE is growing because the stats are given in pounds (sometimes tons), which have shown some growth, but not enough to account for the extra lift both Fedex and UPS have added over the past couple of years.
I wish the stats were given in some universal measure that accounted for cube. It's my belief that CLE shipments are less dense than they used to be, but I can't prove it - and Cleveland's business reporters only talk to the passenger people. As an example, Norton Records (of NYC) just announced that it is moving all of its warehousing and shipping to Lakewood. You will fill a plane with packages of CDs way before you come close to its weight lifting capacity. Their minimum pack is probably 8x6x1.5 inches or .5 cu. ft. weighing half a pound; so an L2 belly container would hold about 300 of them but weigh only 600 lbs (including the container) out of a theoretical weight allowance of 3500 lbs. Cleveland is producing and shipping much more of this type of cargo than formerly, accounting for the 5 or 6 nightly freighters compared to 2 or 3 nightly a few years ago. Lately inbound shipments slightly exceed outbound, but that number is coming closer to even.
So, I *think* cargo is up a lot, but I can't prove it other than to count airplanes. The addition of a LH freighter would make things a lot more interesting.