25/10/2024
Today’s decision by Virgin Atlantic Cargo to put on daily widebody cargo–only flights between London and Brussels has been met with surprise by the industry.
The service will be on A330-300s and A350-1000s, with a 50-tonne cargo capacity. It is focused on time-critical goods, such as perishables and pharmaceuticals, said the carrier, “which today are transported from Heathrow Airport to European hubs by truck services”.
It will operate from Sunday, 27 October to 29 March.
It is not Virgin’s first foray into cargo-only: after a strong cargo-focused Covid, in 2022 it wet-leased for the summer season an A321 freighter for a near-daily route to Brussels, picking up pharma, perishables and ecommerce in Brussels en route to the UK or US. It cited post-Brexit challenges on EU-UK routes as one of the reasons, along with slot portfolio dynamics – the ‘use it or lose it’ rule.
But using a passenger widebody has different economics – and emissions.
Virgin told The Loadstar: “There isn’t a set destination, but goods might come from (or go to) anywhere on our network, most likely our US destinations such as Seattle, New York, Atlanta, Los Angeles, etc. Or it might just be point-to-point between Brussels and London, depending on what our customers want to book.”
One UK forwarder said: “It’s nuts. It’s quicker to truck. If Brussels gets congested, it will take 12 hours+ to get your freight out. And trucking has less emissions. It’s bizarre, there must be more to it. I wouldn’t have thought there is enough traffic to support UK-BE-UK.”
Virgin said it could not compare trucking emissions “as we don’t operate any trucking services” – but one emissions specialist said: “Obviously, it’s not an exact science, but I think we can say with confidence that a cargo plane emits about 5.5-6.5 times as much fuel as a truck per tonne-km, with a variance based on efficiency, total load weight, engine type and so on.
“But that’s for an ordinary cargo plane. A plane empty of passengers and only using belly freight capacity… crikey. There is so much more plane than necessary here.”
A former airline executive pointed out that IAG operated widebody shuttles between Madrid and London, “but that makes more sense as they have a lot of flights from both hubs”.
“It’s an odd one, Virgin must have spare capacity, and maybe they have sold a premium service with shorter transit times. I am guessing it is underpinned by a few key shippers or forwarders – or backed by Amazon or Cainiao.”
An RFS source agreed there could be other contributing factors.
“It’s a weird thing to do. You’d think you could employ the aircraft elsewhere. But then it’s only one thing that can get stuck at the border, rather than 20 to 30 trucks. Every truck coming into the UK has to be screened – but that’s inbound only.
“There is some trepidation over Brexit rules which are coming in at the end of January, and a lot of shippers aren’t ready. So it would be one declaration as opposed to 20 or 30. Virgin has been piloting the SMS system for new import controls, which checks origins. If there is no green light, cargo can’t come in. But it’s only EU-UK.
“That could be a contributing factor, but not the main one.”
The source added that there was also an increasing scarcity of capacity in trucking.
“There is an imbalance on ecommerce from UK-China, so airlines tend to fly into mainland EU where they can get a half-decent export load. But that has made trucking routes longer and there is huge demand.
“Traditionally, RFS would be on short routes like Frankfurt to Paris, but now it could be Liege to Manchester, or Oslo-Frankfurt.
“So it could be a trucking shortage, or at least uncertainty about supply.
“But it would be so much cheaper to truck it. But Virgin likes to be different.”
Juha Jarvinen, Virgin’s chief commercial officer, said: “During the winter period, we will operate services to Brussels, a destination we are familiar with having flown there successfully during the Covid-19 pandemic.
“This new service will transport a range of goods, including perishables and pharmaceuticals, offering fast connections for our customers between Brussels and the wider European region and Virgin Atlantic’s extensive route network via London Heathrow.”
