[Anonymous]

[tolotaxi]

In light of all the recent discussions in the media about London airport capacity, why couldn’t all cargo flights be moved to Stansted considering it is not operating anywhere near capacity. This will only be a short term solution but will open up slots for route expansion at Heathrow while giving London a single cargo hub. This would only apply to cargo only flights of course.

[Bucksnet]

There are only a very small number of all cargo flights at LHR.

[tolotaxi]

Yes, however it would surely be better to put them all in one place than have them scattered between two or three airports.

[VintageKrug]

Does anyone have data on the numbers of pure cargo flights as a proportion of slots?

I would suggest they are a reasonably material number, as there’s a whole section of the airport (and a sixth terminal) dedicated to cargo.

Some quantifiable data would help here.

[Bucksnet]

VK, the big silver building in the south of the airfield mostly handles belly cargo.

[LuganoPirate]

A lot of cargo will be carried in the belly of passenger planes, and this is an important source of revenue for airlines, not to mention the carriage of unaccompanied baggage.

[LuganoPirate]

This should give figures, but I haven’t looked at them yet. I’m sure others can better decipher them than me!

http://www.baa.com/investor-centre/results-and-performance/traffic-statistics

[Gin&Tonic]

All cargo aircraft are not really an issue for Lhr. Less than 10% of its annual cargo volume is carried on freighters to/from Lhr. 35% of all volume is arriving or departing on trucks either to/from continental Europe or from other UK airports where there are cargo flights operated. The remainder is taking up the pax cargo holds.

So the cargo has little bearing on runway capacity, yes it still requires a huge infrastructure in terms of warehouse and transport capacity needed but to move all cargo flights to another airport has little consequence. There are more private flights than all cargo flights in Lhr.

[Author]

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