THE COMPLEX AND CONFUSING AIR CARGO BUSINESS NEEDS AIRPORT PARTNERS

Most of the air carriers, forwarders, truckers, and customs clearance brokers cannot seem to get enough space on or off the airport to accommodate their respective businesses. The international airport cargo space situation is different than domestic in that import and export customs regulations often dictate the methods of handling cargo. There is a limited amount of on-airport cargo space where one can get customs supervision to operate a bonded warehouse that will handle inbound, or international intransit bonded shipments. Off-airport real estate handling export traffic not requiring customs bonds is commanding high land prices, for building, leasing or sub-leasing. Local airport authorities may lease land however, the carrier must build its own warehouse and at the end of the ground leasing time, the warehouse ownership reverts back to the airport authority. Many businesses are dependent upon being close to the carriers as their service businesses are time sensitive and therefore pay the high prices. It is noted that Federal Express has successfully entered the air freight industry by providing their own pickup and delivery and insuring next-day, overnight service. At present only a handful of airports in the U.S. are directly involved with their own air cargo development plan. It is noted that each state needs to create an air cargo post to assist the municipal airport authorities in planning air cargo strategy at the local, state and federal levels.