Carriers' wings clipped on LatAm-North America airfreight trades
Airfreight forwarders and their clients in Argentina are bracing themselves for a challenging three-weeks when the nation's premier air cargo gateway, Buenos Aires' Ezeiza Airport, faces a severe restriction of international capacity.
From 25 October to 11 November, as part of a $100m infrastructure project, Ezeiza is upgrading its secondary runway, 17-35, working on the intersection with the airport's chief runway.
This will cut the length of the main runway from 3,300 metres to 1,850, which one forwarder executive said was "a problem", adding: "It's mainly narrowbodies that will keep flying, but for widebodies it will be a challenge."
Indeed, a number of international carriers have decided to pause operations during the period. Lufthansa cancelled flights between the Argentine capital and Frankfurt, and Swiss is suspending its Zurich-Buenos Aires service.
Others are not selling Buenos Aires service for that period include the three large US airlines, American, Delta, and United, along with Air Canada, Turkish Airlines, Emirates, Air France KLM, British Airways, Ethiopian Airlines, and China Eastern, as the shortened runway will not allow their widebodies to take off at maximum weight.
Other carriers have inserted fuelling stops into their routes: Aerolineas Argentines is planning tech stops in Rio for its services to Rome and Madrid; while Iberia routes its return flight to the Spanish capital over Montevideo.
The cancellations of the big-three US carriers mean another drop in capacity to Latin America's biggest market - just after the start of the winter schedule, which ushers-in a switch from their transatlantic to Latin America networks. This summer the sector has seen a more pronounced reduction in passenger capacity to North America (down 7.4% year on year), whereas seat capacity to Europe rose 3.8%.
"We're working on a couple of alternatives," one forwarder said.
When operations at Ezeiza were hit by fog, flights were diverted to Rosario, Cordoba, and Montevideo, he recalled, but expressed misgivings about the alternatives. Rosario has seen airfreight grow, thanks to e-commerce traffic, but is too small and lacks equipment, he said, adding that going via Montevideo is hamstrung by the fact that the ferry connecting the Uruguayan capital with Buenos Aires does not carry trucks.
Further concerns emerged in mid-August - two weeks after the start of the airport upgrade - when the national civil aviation administration announced it still had not received funding for communications equipment, vehicles, and work tools for its staff to perform control, oversight and support work for the construction companies, warning this posed risks for those employed on the project.
Besides the runway, the project includes the establishment of an apron for narrowbody aircraft, paving taxiways, completion of a 12,000 sq metre courier terminal, and expansion of the airport's export facility for perishables, which will raise temperature-controlled space from 4,500 sq metres to almost 7,000.
According to Peter Cerdá, IATA's VP for the Americas, cargo infrastructure development has lagged growth in cargo throughput at the majority of airports in the region, and he accused the operators of the gateways serving Lima, Bogota, and Santiago of having concentrated on passenger-related projects to the detriment of cargo.
He emphasised one positive aspect, noting the airports had the space for cargo development, and stressed that in addition to building infrastructure, the competitive position of these airports needed to be strengthened by reducing obstacles and optimising operating conditions.
Meanwhile, on the maritime side, Maersk has launched a cold chain service from Chile to the US, for grapes and other perishables that require fumigation. This grape season it ran a pilot, moving the fruit to the mid-Atlantic and south-east regions of the US via the port of Wilmington, featuring fumigation at the port and subsequent inland delivery. According to the carrier, it gives importers faster access to their freight and reduced transport costs in comparison with other routes.
Overall, ocean transport service from South America to North America deteriorated after months of improvement, according to Sea-Intelligence Maritime Analysis. Its Global Liner Performance report for August shows schedule reliability down 8.3 percentage points in June/July, month on month, to 75.4%, and 11.3% lower than a year ago. The average delay for all vessels extended by 0.79 days from the past month, to 1.3 days, while the average delay of late vessels increased 1.11 days, to 5.22 days.
It was the first month of decline this year. Schedule reliability had been improving, albeit at a sinking improvement rate since March/April. Four of the box carriers in the sector showed improved punctuality, while the other four registered declines.
Southbound schedule reliability slipped 2.5 percentage points from May/June, to 84.5%, but was still up 3.2% year on year.
