Facts about aircargo in the UK

 The latest wheeze from the pro-supporters is that Manston needs to become a cargo hub because in 20 years the United Kingdom will need it.

Unfortunately NO ONE can tell what the UK will need in 20 years and if the cargo hub is going to last it has to be able to repay the money used for Capital Expenditure fairly quickly not in 20 years. Investors who wait that long are called the United Kingdom Government and currently they have no money. For an example of that look at HS2.

Now let us talk facts, a subject pro-supporters avoid like the plague.

Some basics:

ATM (a movement of a plane either take off or landing)

DCO (a Development Consent Order)

NSIP ( a Nationally Significant Infrastructure Project)

A Cargo hub needs 10000 ATMs to become a NSIP and be granted a DCO after examination.

Manston has NEVER EVER achieved 10000 ATMs of cargo since commercial aviation started in 1959.

Now RSP have said it hasn't enough airfreight stands on site and they intend to build 19 of them, however what they ignore is just how many will remain empty as there isn't enough airfreight available in the UK to fill those stands, Commercial business cannot succeed if there isn't a need.

There is no such thing as build it and they will come.

From 1990 to closure in 2014 these are the combined passenger and cargo movements:

As you can see from the time Manston became Kent International the best cargo years were 2003-2004 and at no time was cargo ever really busy. This has nothing to do with capacity just to do with a need for Manston for cargo when there are better placed cargo airports.

What about the future asks the pro-supporters especially as they have been spoonfed the lack of room at other airports. This is simply propaganda from Sally Dixon even the report RSP commissioned shows East Midlands is at 29% capacity and Stanstead has 1/3rd of cargo slots free. Between them Heathrow, Stanstead and East Midlands carry 90% of all aircargo currently.

The DfT forecast 60000 ATMs but because of covid and the lack of bellyhold both Stanstead and East Midlands picked up some slack however aircargo tonnage is still down on 2017 and 18% on 2019. what the table does show is Stanstead and East Midlands (even in covid times) has the capacity to cope.

In fact between 2000 and 2005 Cargo only ATMs halved as Heathrow majored in bellyhold freight

So how did Sally Dixon manage to write a report giving Manston the ability to take 20% of all cargo movements when the most it has ever done is 1081 ATMs.

To answer this question we need to understand the business that has used Manston in the past. Most of the cargo was veggies from Africa that arrived in fully loaded cargo planes and those planes mostly took off empty. A fully laden 747 carried 95 tonnes making the average load 47.5 tonnes. 

Now using Sally Dixons own figures they will achieve 10000+ Cargo ATMs in Year 6 carrying just over 180 thousand tonnes. Making an average load of just 17 tonnes per ATM

Had Manston's normal cargo use been carried through then they would have achieved just 3819 ATMs no way near an NSIP,

As a famous quote states you have statistics, more statistics and damn lies