Managing Freight Operations Chains of Passenger Airlines at International Airports

Based on our experience related to the passenger terminal re-design at Sydney airport and its impact on belly-hold freight chains at the airport, this chapter takes a more general view on managing freight chains at large international airports. We aim to review literature and documents related to this area and also to undertake a fleet/traffic analysis of the 100 largest multi-function airports (when measured in terms of scheduled cargo traffic) to get a better understanding of current practice, particularly in the light of potential conflicts or benefits of the joint production of passenger and freight services. While most literature has focused on hub-and-spoke aspects of international hubs, relatively little has been done on economies of scale and scope of passenger and freight airline operations (including timing) at such hubs. This chapter explores to what extent terminal organisation of international airports impacts on the use of dedicated freighter of combination airlines and hence airline efficiency. A key finding in terms of airline efficiency is that economies of scale of air cargo operation appear to exist at the aircraft level as dedicated freighters are used more often if a sufficient threshold of air freight demand is observed at the airport level.