Page 33 - The STAT Trade Times September 2022 Issue

RFD opened two international ware-
We are seeing the houses measuring a total of 190,000
square feet in the recent past. It is build-
continuation of our growth ing a third warehouse of 50,000 square
over the last five years. feet on the airfield and it will be operated
by a new cargo handler. RFD currently
2022 is exceeding 2021 by has only one ground handler and that is

about 12% at the moment. Emery Air. The third warehouse is sched-
uled to be opened before the end of this
We are on track again to year or in January next year.
Oakley also confirmed that RFD will
break our record for cargo announce a new warehouse of 100,000

volume and weight at square feet outside the airport fence. “We
are developing this facility to offer custom-
Rockford in 2022. ers the flexibility and the support to grow
within the airport and off the airport.”
Zach Oakley
Chicago Rockford Talking about RFD keep setting new
International Airport gold standards and being so cargo friendly,
Oakley said that the approach is “extremely
business and cargo friendly”. “We're not
and freight forwarders including DB Perhaps the most interesting develop- approaching this as a large bureaucratic
Schenker, DSV, HAE, Senator International, ment to watch out for is the cargo opera- organization trying to set up roadblocks
ABX Air, ATI, National Airlines, Silk Way tions coming from Maersk Air Cargo and for companies to set up and do business in
West Airlines, Emirates SkyCargo, Korean CMA CGM Air Cargo. Rockford. We can't allow others to set our
Air, Qatar Airways Cargo and Atlas Air. “We expect to see those carriers choos- course for us. We have to step up and do
With the airport’s ongoing cargo expan- ing RFD as shipping giant Maersk now those ourselves and align with our partners
sion, RFD has become a Midwest hub for owns Senator International, which in 2020 and stay in front of our airlines, freight
e-commerce and international freight. chose RFD as its MidWest hub,” he said. forwarders and handlers to solve those
In fact, it was in February this year that Senator, which operates a cargo ware- challenges. We stay very focused on that.
Emirates SkyCargo launched its freighter house at RFD, has contracted Emery Air, a And I think that that's really allowed us to
operations to RFD complementing the premier aviation company based at RFD, be successful because we're always trying
cargo connectivity it already offers in the to oversee its cargo handling operations. to figure out how we can get it done. We
US Midwest region through O’Hare Inter- Having the UPS hub at RFD opened are trying to find solutions to make sure we
national Airport, Chicago (ORD) and Rick- an easy runway for Amazon Air to begin can deliver for our customers.”
enbacker International Airport, Columbus operations in 2017. That was also the time RFD is certainly a strong hub for inter-
(LCK). RFD connection offers customers in UPS had made a big investment in up- national flights and e-commerce and this
the region the advantage of the addition- grading its sort centre that was capable of is something that took off so well during
al choice and flexibility to transport their handling over 150,000 packages per hour. the pandemic. “It really accelerated that
cargo across Emirates’ global network of According to Oakley, Amazon Air be- growth and what we are seeing are more
more than 140 destinations. gan with a 72,000 square feet facility but people are choosing to fly into RFD as op-
Oakley expects to welcome a few it has now grown to 200,000 square feet. posed to flying into some of these major
more cargo carriers towards the end of Amazon Air now operates nine flights a airports like O’Hare,” said Oakley.
2022. He did not name them because day, seven days a week, mostly B767Fs. It looks like agility is so inherent to
the airport is yet to sign agreements. The “It looks like it is going to go up as we RFD and that is the one characteristic,
airport is also expecting to have more come closer to the peak season in the last an important one indeed, other large
growth coming from Atlas Air and UPS. quarter,” he said. hubs lack. 

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